Commercial stats packages simply examine the logs produced by the web server to collate information on usage. These systems know nothing about the identity of the user who is browsing your site, or how the various pages relate to each other.

PageLocker creates its own logs in the database using information that identifies the user if they are logged in, and includes a page reference that links into the dynamic menu system.

The optional stats module in PageLocker allows you to create reports using this information to fully analyse site usage, including:

• view page hits distributed over the entire site map, with rolled-up totals for each menu option
  
• view number of sessions and pages hits with filtering options for area viewed, number of page hits, referring domain, user groups
  
• view the top users or user groups
  
• see the user trend for a particular registered member or filter by any field in the user profile such as organisation, gender, etc. Exclude sessions from certain groups or IP addresses when compiling the results
  
• analyse referrals in terms of what happens when the user enters your site. For example, you may get thousands of referrals from a site but the visitors arriving do not view any other pages, buy a product or fill in an enquiry form. Your money may be better spent on a site delivering fewer visitors but where a high proportion of the visitors view several pages, generate leads or buy a product. This information is virtually impossible to determine from commercial stats packages.

Reports can be saved with the settings to enable quick reporting for later periods and are all completely printer-friendly.

Custom reports can be easily incorporated into PageLocker, enabling you to analyse specific areas which may be of additional significance to your business.

Most importantly, PageLocker allows you to filter out the activity from your own organisation and from web search engine 'crawlers' when compiling the statistics. It's amazing how these sessions can distort the picture of the real usage of your website.