Website Analysis

[gpeters]

I've been reading Chris' article called "Traffic Analysis Primer". I know he advices against using Remote Tracking Services.
Is Google Analytics considered a Remote Tracking Services? If so is it recommended? I just installed it on my personal site here www.gpeters.ca to try it. I like it so far but I'm not sure I would benefit more from Logging Programs. I'm starting an ecommerce site and I will not have access to the server to install a logging program (or maybe I do but don't know how). I'm not the most tech savvy person so I need to keep it simple.

I like to know if it is a good idea to use Google Analytics or other similar services and any other advice on this topic is appreciated.

[Chris]

Google Analytics is remote tracking, but it is in a class by itself, and didn't exist when I wrote that article many years ago.

Understand, GA is not 100% accurate because it relies on javascript which can be controlled by the end user (or not executed at all), but all told the features GA offers, for free, are really nice.

[gpeters]

So if I understand right from your article I should see Googlebot as the browser visiting my site when it gets crawled...right? I found this website that lists three different versions for Google crawlers http://www.useragentstring.com/pages/Googlebot/
Is that correct?

Do you know under what section in GA I would look to know that my site got crawled by Google and other search engines?

I still want to get a quote from you regarding SEO work but for now I’m learning as much as I can on my own first. I plan on launching my eCommerce site in about two months or so.

[gpeters]

I think I answered my own question.... user agents are the browesers. What I found out though is that GA will not show crawlers (Googlebot and other search engines). Since I will have my ecommerce site hosted I won't have the ability to have Logging Program installed and not sure if my web hosting company will have a Log Analysis Program installed.

Any ideas on how I could go about getting data about the bots and crawlers visiting my site?