Although it is a simple web analytics tool, there are certain advantages that the use of logfile analysis can provide when it comes to determining visitor behavior of certain websites.

Some people may have already put it aside as an obsolete tool for helping website owners come up with better and more efficient sites. But there is no doubt that it can still provide some essential information that may better help web analytics experts in coming up with a better view of online visitor behavior.

One of its certain advantages is that web servers ordinarily produce log files. This makes the raw data required for analysis already available even without instituting new procedures. What the experts may need to do is to collect the information and keep them in an organized manner for further analysis and getting essential statistics about how online visitors behave at certain points and at which times.

What gives logfile analysis a certain advantage is that web servers reliably take stock of every transaction that it makes. In the case of other web analytics methods such as page tagging, gathering of data would require the cooperation of the visitors own web browsers to be successful. Sometimes this is not possible since most page tags make use of JavaScript and would not work on visits from people that have their browsers disabled on accepting JavaScript.

Another advantage of logfile analysis is that the data collected is recorded on the company's or the websit5e owner's own servers. It comes in a standard format that can be used on any other computer systems. This allows the website owner to change programs later without affecting the data collection methods used in logfile analysis.

Logfile analysis also helps provide information on visits made by search engine spiders. Although not to be considered as part of gauging human activity on the website, they can help provide data that can be used for search engine optimization.

Another advantage that log files have on other forms of web analytics tools being used today is that it also records data on failed requests which other online data collection methods do not provide. Page tags only records instances where a page is successfully viewed by a visitor and neglects to take stock of failed requests. These errors may also help experts get a detailed view of a website's efficiency and usability in some ways.