...they are to be analyzed! It is important to collect Log files about the traffic on your website, but they are just a waste of Gigabytes if you don't analyze them.

They can tell you a lot of things, they can reveal a lot of data about users who clicked on your ads, found you on Google or reached your site from a bookmark, they can report errors of visualization, how may times page 404 was shown and so on...

A company's web server logs are one of the most important and often-neglected sources of information at their disposal.
Without a detailed and careful analysis of this data, a company will be more or less blind and oblivious both to threats and opportunities.
There are two common mistakes that I see, time and time again.

(1) "My web host already offer online statistics. This is more than enough information."
Big mistake. Huge mistake. Comparable to "well there's usually enough money in the bank, so who needs to plan and budget?"

(2) "I simply don't have the time". Even bigger mistake.

If a company isn't setting aside time each week or month to look through their log data, they have no idea how well their website is performing as a marketing tool, no idea how well they're doing on the search engines, no idea how well their AdWords are performing, and no idea of how easily they might be able to improve their sales.

The good news is that even if you're tight for time and don't want to spend money on expensive software, there's a lot you can do to start seizing these opportunities.

And the great news is that you only need three things. And some of them, or perhaps even all of them, are free. More or less. The three things are log files, analysis software and time.

Log files.
- If you don't know where your raw log files are, or how to download them, then contact your server.
- If their answer is that your account doesn't include access to the raw log files, then move server.

I say that knowing all too well that this is one hell of a headache, but I can't stress just how critically important and useful this information is. You don't want to be running your business without it.
And don't be put off by having access to the logs for today only. It isn't enough. You need your server to archive and compress these files, and you need to be able to download them at your leisure.
We pay $1 a month for hosting some of our smaller auxiliary web sites, and each of these include access to compressed log file archives. So don't let your server tell you that this is a high-end spec. It isn't.

Software.
Once you get your raw log files on your own system, you'll soon realise that you're never going to get anywhere by reading through thousands of lines of log entries manually.
The good news is that you don't have to use Notepad or Excel. The really good news is that there are some excellent software solutions out there to do the job for you, some of which are free.
We'll look at some of the better software solutions in just a moment.

Time.
This is the only requirement for server log analysis that you need to actually make some of commitment. Like any other worthwhile activity, it's going to take up some of your working day. But it doesn't have to be too long, and I guarantee that it's time well spent.
For now, let's go back to the software itself. A quick look through the Log Analyzer section at TuCows, at the time of writing this article, shows almost thirty different applications listed.
Over the years, I myself have worked with a good nine or ten log analysis applications, so have a fair understanding of what's out there. I've therefore listed four of the applications that I myself work with, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses.
(Continues on http://www.davetalks.com/articles/importance-of-log-analysis.htm)

Of course it is important to store your log files correctly and to harvest those you really need, even if Log analysis is very important it is quite time consuming, that is why saving the right data in a easy accessible form makes you save time and money.

ClickMeter Servicehas a complete set of data that can record and store in logs, this makes it an important tool to Save and Analyze your Website Logs.

Author of this Arthicle: Dr. Marco Tosti a ConsultingSoft consultant.