CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlapacheweb-statistics
Kevin Wang
Kevin Wang

Reputation: 3330

Scalable Webstat Tracking

I am looking for the "best practices" or just recommended methods of tracking stats. If I am developing a site that has youtube-like page stat tracking (views, visits, etc). It is pretty important that I have realtime statistics, but I want to avoid issues when scaling and was wondering if there are other methods to solve this besides caching.

I plan to use Google Analytics for most of the statistics, but Google only updates once every 3-4 hours.

I am a little worried about scalability. Some stats need to be realtime - how does a site like youtube handle it? Do they count stats in memory and then defer a database query to once-every-30-mins or are they just caching read requests and updating those every few hours? What would you recommend doing?

Thanks again SO, I'm so glad that the rest of you can share the wealth of experience that I lack.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 105

Answers (2)

user2674219
user2674219

Reputation: 11

I can recommend one method of tracking web statistics, if you have an iPhone, you might want to look at TeddyTrack. (Full disclosure: I worked on the project.) It is as realtime as it gets. In fact if you shake your iPhone, it updates your stats instantly. :-) You only get four graphs but they include (complex) weekly cohort graphs. It's far less complex to setup and manage then Google Analytics. But why choose? Why not get Google Analytics, Piwik, AWStats and TeddyTrack? Use all of them and see which ones you like best. TeddyTrack might suit you because it is very lightweight and it keeps your data on your server. Links:

awstats.sourceforge.net, piwik.org, www.google.com/analytics, teddytrackapp.com.

You can also use no free ones like above mentioned chartbeat.com but they cost serious money.

Upvotes: 1

raidenace
raidenace

Reputation: 12826

Not sure which version of Google Analytics you are using but the newer versions support real time stats. Check out http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html

Also you could check what sitecatalyst from Omniture (now acquired by Adobe) has to offer. Its been a while since I worked with it, but it is really enterprise and scalable.

All the best!

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions