I know this aint an IT forum, but since a lot of us here are experienced in coding and maintaining website, thought it would not hurt to post it here.

I intend to use the free space given by cablecom to host my personal webpage. Now, is there a reliable tool available (also free) which would allow me to monitor the net traffic and get some ideas on page hits, location, unique visitors etc etc.?

I tried my hands with Net Stats, I am using NVU for designing my website (ya... I am definitely a newbie ) but after pasting the given lines in the HTML code of the homepage, I wasn't successful in firing up the counter.

Now could it be due to the fact that the index.html file is in the
ftp.hispeed.ch/homepage folder? But that was default in cablecom anyway... And my webpage otherwise works fine.

If anyone has been using the same cablecom space and using some kind of net stat monitor, would you be kind enough to share your experience?

Thanks in advance and of course any help is appreciated ..
Bender

Try Webalizer if your can see your logfiles with Cablecom

... or Google Analytics?

http://www.google.com/analytics/

(donning my tinfoil hat now)

web-stat.com

AWStats is also an option.

Boy oh boy .. I am sitting on a Diamond mine ...
Thanks a tonne folks .. I will spend the remaining of my noob time installing and checking these links ..
Hope it works, I will keep you posted .. (in case another noob follows my path) ...

I don't think you get to see your logfiles. I recall reading that the Cablecom pages don't allow you to use your own CGI or Javascript. That may have changed since; can anyone confirm that?

I've just set up a mini-site for myself. The (extremely basic) default HTML generated for you does contain a counter, called from the main index.html. I haven't tried yet to see if you can put counters on other pages.

Anyway THE SUN HAS COME OUT! Time for an early lunchbreak before it changes its mind!

I spent yesterday trying to find out where they store the log files.

Also, in the meanwhile I appended the code from google.analytics in the index.html last evening (which seems javascipt as well). The google website says that it takes 24hrs for the script to be operational, but I thought it should be atleast able to detect that my webpage has the code in it, but alas till now nada....

I am waiting for it to work out after 24hrs, if not then I call up the masters at Cablecom and ask a few things ...

Can someone confirm how to do this, who may have tried it with the cablecom free webspace? Help much appreciated...

Damnit ... Google analytics does not work ...
Called up Cablecom -> Asked the question and then (After listening to Truely madly deeply for 5 minutes)

Ans: "Sir, we do not allow javascript or cgi" ....

Qn: - Can you then please tell what to do if I want a counter and also statistics of visitors for my webpage?

Ans: "Errr....Hold on Sir, I will ask the expert" (why not connect me to the expert???)

After a while ... (another song now Eagles ... I was enjoying that actually, so no complaints ... )

Ans: "Sir, we support only internet and email and not the webspace, it has to be done by the customer himself. Try to write the index file in HTML and not in javascript or Java, you can then get the webstatistics!"

I thought, here ends my phone call.

I thought I was the noob!! Or am I "really" the noob, who has no clue as to what he said??

Why don't you go find some cheap Webspace elsehere in an environment where fancy technology is included or (gasp) analytics may already be part of the deal?

1&1 comes to mind, I am sure plenty others exist, too. And the cost is (IMHO) pretty negligible these days.

http://www.godaddy.com and http://www.hostexcellence.com also spring to mind.

hostpoint.ch will give you the lot for CHF118/year...

Sorry to be off topic ... I would be glad to abide if the admin wants me to write this in another thread, but since this is already "other/general" I don't want to create another one just yet.

Thanks to all of you ...
Surely, the idea has also struck me before, but I thought what the heck .. let me try the free space .. if not, then ... So it seems, I might have to take the plunge.

What I find a bit odd, is the fact that all the swiss hosts offer very limited server space for approx 10CHF a month ...
Hostpoint - 30GB
Netspirit - 300mb

Whereas the US based companies, like host excellence (300Gig for $6.97, go daddy 300Gig for $4.29) they all provide a LOT more for even less money ...

Now only thing, I like is the .ch domains by default with the swiss hosters, whereas for the others its a little exotic. Other than that, why should someone pay more and get so much less space?

Is there something more than what meets the eye? Why would you choose a Swiss host? Is it server down time etc? or is it ease ofcustomer support ... or .....??

For one thing, it would depend where your visitors are coming from. If from Switzerland, then a host here would be better. You might also benefit from having support locally, most support is via email anyways. There's also the question of whether or not you're comfortable with having your data on systems in the US.

I think you can expect that all hosting services will oversell. That is, they'll sell a 10GB plan to their users, but they don't actually have enough capacity to actually host all of their users at full usage. With those 300GB plans, who knows how fast the servers actually are. Could be a good deal if you have a lot of data that isn't accessed regularly. Most of these users with 300GB probably only use a small percentage of the disk space.

Host Excellence have been pretty good for me, and you can use your .ch domains you buy from Switch with them.

You can use your .ch domains you buy from SWITCH with pretty much anyone. My last employer, based in the US, had a .ch domain as well as the .com domain on their US hosted webservers.

I use dnsexit for almost all my domain names, they are free and give you full control over MX, A Records and Cname. They also offer a free dynamic DNS service.

I've just been using them for a month or so, but they seem very cool. The tomcat based interface is just a bit slow though...

Strange that your Google analytics doesn't work. I maintain five small website for acquaintances and use this for all of them.

It is very detail rich and provides loads of info.

You must make sure though that the small script they give you is inserted just before the closing "body" tag.

I even use their robots .txt thingy to stop people going into certain directories because I'm too clueless to figure out how .htaccess works no matter how many times I read the Wiki article

You also might want to take a look at IPS for hosting. I use them for all my site and haven't had any problems. I use the basic package which costs Fr 11.95 and gives 2000 Mb.

HTH

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There is http://freedns.afraid.org/ too. I used them for a bit but their interface is also poor.

I just don't see the need to pay for a service just for a better interface however.