We've taken at least a small part of the log file summarization process through from start to finish in this chapter. We started off by looking at how we can get Internet Information Server to log accesses to our site in two ways—both through the built-in hit logging (file access) feature, and through a custom technique using ASP session events.
We then went on to see how we can manage the huge volumes of data that these two processes produce, by summarizing it into several more focussed individual tables. These are only a fraction of the size of the original log file tables, and so will make sorting, querying and manipulating the data much more efficient further down the line. We also considered ways that we can automate the entire process, so that it runs every week or month without user intervention.
Finally, we used one of the tables to create some visible output on our site. The RefererSummary table, where we store a list of all the pages on other sites that provide links to our site, makes it easy to create a page containing links to these sites. We used ASP and a custom component to parse the list, checking for appropriate content, and from it created an HTML-formatted text file of the links. Finally, we inserted this text file into the final page to provide a fast and efficient list of 'Links To Us'.
Overall, this chapter covered:
In the next chapter, we'll go deeper into the way that we can use the information we collect in our log files. We'll show you how we can create flexible and attractive reports that make it easy to monitor the performance of our Web site.