Now that you've learned some of the basics of log file statistics, you should check out a program called Statbot, which can be used to automatically generate statistics and graphs. You can find it at:
http://www.xmission.com:80/dtubbs/
Statbot is a WWW log analyzer, statistics generator, and database program. It works by "snooping" on the logfiles generated by most WWW servers and creating a database that contains information about the WWW server. This database is then used to create a statistics page and GIF charts that can be "linked to" by other WWW resources.
Because Statbot "snoops" on the server logfiles, it does not require the use of the server's cgi-bin capability. It simply runs from the user's own directory, automatically updating statistics. Statbot uses a text-based configuration file for setup, so it is very easy to install and operate, even for people with no programming experience. Most importantly, Statbot is fast. Once it is up and running, updating the database and creating the new HTML page can take as little as 10 seconds. Because of this, many Statbot users run Statbot once every 5-10 minutes, which provides them with the very latest statistical information about their site.
Another fine log analysis program is AccessWatch, written by Dave Maher. AccessWatch is a World Wide Web utility that provides a comprehensive view of daily accesses for individual users. It is equally capable of gathering statistics for an entire server. It provides a regularly updated summary of WWW server hits and accesses, and gives a graphical representation of available statistics. It generates statistics for hourly server load, page demand, accesses by domain, and accesses by host. AccessWatch parses the WWW server log and searches for a common set of documents, usually specified by a user's root directory, such as /username/ or /users/username. AccessWatch displays results in a graphical, compact format.
If you'd like to look at all of the available log file analyzers, go to Yahoo's Log Analysis Tools page: http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/ World_Wide_Web/HTTP/Servers/Log_Analysis_Tools/
This page lists all types of log file analyzers-from simple Perl scripts to full-blown graphical applications.