Built-In Analytics for Website Traffic & Trends – AWStats in cPanel

This Tip of the Week covers topics including:

• 1:07 – Developer Hub: Analytics (AWStats in cPanel)
• 3:18 – Notable Statistics
• 7:57 – Demo: Website Analytics Tool
• 28:24 – More Traffic Analytics Tools

This is a segment from Webinar Wednesday 173, recorded live on February 28, 2024.

AI-Generated Transcript – Please excuse any inaccuracies

Developer Hub: Analytics (AWStats in cPanel)

• AWStats provides a simple yet comprehensive snapshot of website traffic statistics.
• No need for code pasting or third-party tools.
• Offers essential traffic statistics:
• Number of visitors
• Page views
• Hits (bandwidth usage)
• Time and day of peak traffic
• Website referrers
• Geolocation of visitors
• Operating systems and browsers used
• Entry and exit pages
• Useful for identifying optimization opportunities.

Notable Statistics

• Peak hours: See what time of day and day of the week your website receives the most traffic.
• Traffic by country: Identify countries with a significant amount of traffic.
• Bandwidth usage: Identify individual IP addresses or hosts that consume a lot of bandwidth.
• High activity bots: Identify and block unfamiliar bots that scrape your website.
• File types: See the top file formats that consume the most bandwidth.
• Downloads: See which specific files are downloaded the most.
• Pages: See which specific web pages are most viewed by visitors.
• Entry and exit points: Identify the most common pages visitors come to and leave from.
• Operating systems and web browsers: See the most common operating systems and web browsers used by visitors.
• Referrers: See which search engines and individual websites direct the most traffic to your website.

Demo: Website Analytics Tool

• AWStats is a built-in analytics tool accessible through the CPanel | cPanel dashboard that provides basic Web traffic | website traffic and trend data.
• Key metrics include unique visitors, visits per visitor, page views, hits, and bandwidth usage.
• Historical data can be viewed by month, day, or hour, allowing for growth comparison and optimization strategies.
• AWStats provides insights into peak bandwidth usage, high hit days, peak visitor times, and the top countries visiting the website.
• Blocking countries with high bandwidth usage and low relevance can conserve bandwidth and improve website performance.
• The IP addresses section identifies individual visitors' IP addresses and their bandwidth usage, allowing specific IP addresses to be blocked to restrict unwanted traffic.
• Search engines and SEO tools should utilize bandwidth efficiently, while rogue spiders and bots can consume excessive bandwidth, leading to bandwidth limits being reached quickly.
• The robots file in the developer hub allows control over which spiders can crawl the website, and restoring default settings can block rogue spiders and bots.
• Visitor behavior metrics such as visits and duration provide insights into user engagement, and large images can be identified as potential bandwidth issues.
• Optimizing large images can resolve bandwidth problems, and the downloads section shows the top downloaded files and their associated bandwidth usage.
• Top pages visited provide valuable information about popular content on the website, and the "URL | Page URLs" section shows popular pages and allows filtering by keywords.
• The "Operating System and Browsers" section reveals visitor demographics based on operating systems and devices, which can inform marketing strategies.
• The "Referring Sites" section shows the sources of Web traffic | website traffic, and websites that refer traffic to a site can be identified for potential collaborations or link exchanges.
• The Q&A section allows users to ask questions and get more detailed explanations about the analytics.

More Traffic Analytics Tools

• CPanel | cPanel AWStats provides a basic overview of website traffic and trends.
• More robust and granular analytics tools are available, such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, Matomo (software) | Matomo, and Semrush | SEMrush.
• These tools offer more comprehensive insights into visitor behavior, page visits, and real-time reporting.
• They allow for data comparisons, searching for specific URL | page URLs, and scalability for larger websites.
• Google Analytics is a popular free option, while paid tools offer additional features and capabilities.