View Your Site’s Traffic Data in cPanel Using AwStats

Want to learn more about AwStats? If you are like me, it is more than likely that you do not pay particular attention to your site’s cPanel. That is despite the fact that it is, without a doubt, the best web hosting control panel that can be found out there. What most people do not realize is that cPanel comes with a wide range of useful tools. In fact, you can use cPanel as a substitute for some of the analytics tools that are available for sale out there.

AwStats

If your web host is anything like mine, chances are high that you will have AwStats in your cPanel. This blog is hosted by InterServer.

You can read more on why I think InterServer is the best web host by following this link. In any case, AwStats is part of my hosting package and can be found in my cPanel.

What is AwStats

AwStats is a great web analytics tool that presents, in an easy to understand, graphical way, a wide range of statistics on a website’s performance. This includes data on the following;

• FTP
• Web
• Streaming
• Mail Servers

Graphical Presentation

The great thing is that all this important data, as I have already mentioned, is presented in a graphical way. This makes it easy to understand, even for beginners. With this tool, you eliminate the need to purchase expensive web analytics tools. All the information that you need in order to make your online presence a successful one is availed at the click of a button.

Open Source

AwStats is open source, which means that it can be used free of charge. That is another great thing about this useful utility. So, how do you access AwStats in your cPanel and what kind of information does it offer?

How to Access AwStats in cPanel

In order to get to AwStats in my cPanel, all that I need to do is log into my web hosting account.

Once you have logged into your account, the next thing that you need to do is access your cPanel.

In my case, this is seemingly a  roundabout process, with a countless number of clicks. I do, however, get there eventually.

In cPanel

Once you have, by whatever means, gained access to your web hosting cPanel, the next thing that you need to do is find the AwStats icon. This can be found under “Metrics.”

Select a Domain

• Click on the icon and you will be taken to a page that list the domains whose data is available.
• Choose the one whose information you would like to view. In my case, I will choose the second option, which is my site’s primary domain.
• Clicking on “View” opens up a new window in another tab on my browser. This is where data from my website can be viewed.

Which Data is Available?

So, what kind of data is available through AwStats? I do have to say that I was surprised at the sheer amount of the information that I had not even been aware was lying around in my cPanel. Network Bees is, admittedly, a very young site (only 1 and and half months old). This accounts for the fact that traffic stats are not into their millions (my dream). In any case, here is the information that is available to me through AwStats;

• Number of Unique visitors
• Number of visits
• Pages
• Hits
• Bandwidth
• A lot more

Detailed Reports: Monthly, Weekly and Hourly Reports

The great thing about AwStats is that it is pretty detailed. As an example, not only does it give me the “Monthly History,” of traffic to my site, but it also shows me how my blog performed on each day of the month.

You also get detailed reports on each of the hours in a given week. This is of particular importance, in that it allows you to see the times at which your site is having the greatest of impacts.

Locales

Another great thing about AwStats is that it gives you precise information on the locations from which visitors to your site are coming. As you can see in the above screenshot, I am getting most of my visitors from Zimbabwe and the United States.

Crawl Data

Another useful bit of data that you get through AwStats pertains to the rate through which Search Engine bots are crawling your site.

I can see, based on this information, that Googlebot last visited my site yesterday, the 27th of March 2017.

In fact, Googlebot has, by far, crawled my site more often than any of the other Search engine bots. I can also see that Slurp, Yahoo’s crawler, has recently been visiting my site.

Referrers

AwStats gives you a lot more information, most of which you can download onto your computer. This includes information about your site’s Referrers. These are the Search Engines and websites that are referring people to your website. In my case, the largest number has been coming from Google. This is followed by Yandex, the Russian Search Engine. Yahoo and Bing have also been referring visitors to my site.

Search Keywords and Keyphrases

This provides an alternative view to the one that you get while using the rank tracking tools that can be found out there.

With AwStats, you get a comprehensive view into the keywords and keyphrases that your site is being ranked for.

Once again, the good thing about this tool is that everything comes free of charge!

This information is priceless, since it gives an insight into how well your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies are bearing fruit.

It is only by having this data that you can make, where necessary, refinements that will make your web pages even more competitive.

Conclusion

I do have to admit that I stumbled upon AwStats while looking for one thing or the other in my cPanel. It has, so far, proven to be an eye opener. The amount and quality of data that it contains will enable me to, going forward, find traction as I seek to make my site more visible.