Logging Web Site Activity

You can collect information about user activity by configuring logging for your Web sites. Such information is stored in ASCII files or an ODBC-compliant database, and goes beyond the usual event-logging carried out through use of Windows NT Server features. The information might include:

Who has visited your Web site.
What information a visitor has viewed.
When a visitor viewed the information.

You can use this data for purposes such as:

Planning for the number of users that regularly gain access to your site.
Assessing content popularity.
Clearing up Web site problems.
Creating an archive of overall Web site activity.

This section contains:

About Logging Web Site Activity: Gives an overview of logging, describes logging formats, and discusses log file size and the creation of new log files.
Enabling Logging: Tells how to enable or disable logging for a Web or FTP site or for directories within a site where logging is enabled. Also tells how to specify the log file format.
Specifying How Log Files are Saved: Tells how to specify the log-file directory and also the criterion for the starting of a new log file (for example, daily, weekly, or by file size).
Customizing W3C Extended Logging: For W3C Extended logging only, tells how to specify the fields that will included in the log.
Preparing for ODBC Logging: For ODBC logging only, tells how to specify the database that IIS will log to, and tells how to prepare the database so it can receive the data.
Interpreting Log Files: Shows some examples of different log formats, to help you interpret files when viewing them in a text editor.
Converting Log Files to Other Formats: Tells how to use the command-line utility for converting logs to NCSA Common Log File Format.

This section does not contain information on:

Analyzing log data by using Usage Import and Report Writer ; see Usage Import and Report Writer in the Microsoft® Site Server Express online documentation (online documentation is available only if you have installed the product).
Using monitoring tools other than logging; see Performance Monitoring.
Tuning your server for better performance; see Performance Tuning.
Generating, viewing, or understanding security logs (auditing); see Security.
Generating, viewing, or understanding custom logging formats; see Creating A Custom Logging Module.