[drupal-devel] [feature] Filtering of statistics ("real" visitors
only)
mikeryan
drupal-devel at drupal.org
Mon Aug 29 01:03:14 UTC 2005
Issue status update for
http://drupal.org/node/29328
Post a follow up:
http://drupal.org/project/comments/add/29328
Project: Drupal
Version: cvs
Component: statistics.module
Category: feature requests
Priority: normal
Assigned to: Anonymous
Reported by: mikeryan
Updated by: mikeryan
Status: patch (code needs work)
What specific coding standard?
The big thing isn't my own visits, it's the crawlers (with 5000+ nodes
on my site, they significantly distort the stats). And they can't be
filtered at output time...
mikeryan
Previous comments:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 21 Aug 2005 18:08:32 +0000 : mikeryan
Attachment: http://drupal.org/files/issues/statistics.module_2.patch (6.73 KB)
Justification:
For all but the most heavily-trafficked sites, the statistics reported
by Drupal are severely skewed by visits from crawlers, and from the
administrators themselves. Assuming that the purpose of the statistics
is to inform administrators about visits from human beings other than
themselves, it is highly desirable to do our best to ignore other
visits. To that end, I developed the statistics_filter module [1] (and
its spinoff, the browscap module [2]).
Why core?
There's enough concern over the logging the statistics module does in
the exit hook for the performance issues to be detailed in the help. To
work as a contributed module, the statistics_filter module needs to undo
what the statistics module did, essentially doubling the overhead for
accesses that are meant to be ignored. If incorporated into the
statistics module directly, the filtering functionality will actually
reduce the database overhead (no database queries at all for ignored
roles).
Open issue
Ignoring crawlers (which are the biggest part of the issue for most
sites - my own site, with modest volume, gets 40% of its raw traffic
from the Google crawler) requires the browscap database to identify
crawlers. Currently I have maintenance of the browscap data (as well as
provision for browser/crawler statistcs) encapsulated in a separate
module. Should this support be submitted to core as a separate module,
or integrated into the statistics module?
Attached is a patch to statistics.module implementing filtering by
roles, with filtering out crawlers dependent on an external browscap
module. I hope this patch can be accepted into Drupal 4.7 - if the
feeling is that the browscap code should be incorporated into
statistics.module, I can do that.
Thanks.
[1] http://drupal.org/node/18013
[2] http://drupal.org/node/26569
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 21 Aug 2005 19:43:11 +0000 : Bèr Kessels
a big -1.
we should STORE all (read absolute all) logs, yet FILTER them in the
reports.
What makes you think crawlers are not users? Or that I am not
interested in crawlers?
I think you might be more interested in adding value to xstatistics,
which wants to be a more advanced stats module.
And last, but not least, adding checks for contrib modules in core
(if_module_exists) is a no-go. In that case, you could try to introduce
a hook, but hardcoded checks for modules will simply not do.
Let us hear moer comments and then decide the status of this patch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 21 Aug 2005 20:45:23 +0000 : mikeryan
Of course, the filtering is optional - if an administrator wants to
count crawlers as if they were users, then they just don't turn on
filtering of crawlers. Personally, I don't find it useful to see that a
node has 100 views when I know some unknown (but substantial) portion of
those views were from Google/Inktomi/etc - I want to know what the human
beings are reading, not what the crawlers' algorithms picked to index
today.
Yes, I know better than to reference contrib code from core - as I
said, the question is whether (if this is to go into core) it would be
better to keep browscap as a separate (core) module or incorporate it
into statistics.module. Probably the latter, but I figured I'd raise
the issue before putting the integration work in...
The advantage of filtering at the point of logging is performance -
reduced overhead in the exit hook, plus a substantially smaller
accesslog table. The disadvantage is, of course, losing the log entries
for crawlers and ignored roles, but if you're not interested in them
anyway it's a win.
So, the question is whether others are interested in filtering accesses
from the log entirely, or it's just me....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 21 Aug 2005 23:55:21 +0000 : dopry
+1 for this patch
If I remember correctly popular content block, etc are linked to the
statistics module and the data it logs. So some sites may want to not
get this data skewed by administrators and search engines. If you still
want full logging capabilities you can use the apache access logs. For
larger sites it may be a slight performance advantage and save some db
access time with smaller log tables even though admin access and bot
access would be a negligable percentage. As an option I think its a
nice one.
I think Bers objection to core requiring a contrib module check is an
important one, though and if other people think this is something that
should go into core, then it should be addresses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mon, 22 Aug 2005 08:27:44 +0000 : Bèr Kessels
I know it is optional. But still: filtering your logs on *save* is
unacceptible. logs should contain *everything*. If you want to not show
certain entries, you should filter them on *output*.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mon, 22 Aug 2005 08:33:36 +0000 : robertDouglass
I agree with Bér.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:17:45 +0000 : varunvnair
+1 for what mikeryan is suggesting.
I use Drupal to power by blog (http://www.thoughtfulchaos.com). I have
a shared webhosting package and 100s of other websites are also hosted
on the machine that hosts my blog (and the machine that hosts my
database also has 100s or 1000s of other databases)
Sometimes my site seems to be quite slow. This is probably bcoz of the
machine receiving too much traffic. I cannot move to a better package
bcoz I cannot afford it. I often look to sqeeze every ounce of
performance I can from my installation and 1 way of doing this is by
reducing the number of SQL queries.
What to log and what not to log should be at the discretion of the site
admin. After all s/he is the 1 who is going to decide what to do with
the logs. There is no 1 golden rule that applies to all installations.
There is no sense in logging everything if the site admin has to go to
extra lengths to ignore what s/he doesn't need.
Anyways all accesses are logged by the provider and most people can
access the Apache logs and use them for more detailed analysis (I can).
For a CMS like Drupal, to capture everything in a log is probably
unnecessary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mon, 22 Aug 2005 09:20:29 +0000 : Kobus
I can't see any reason besides "taking up space" for not logging
everything. I say -1 for not logging everything, +1 for filtering logs
on output, with full logs available on demand.
Regards,
Kobus
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:13:19 +0000 : mikeryan
Hmm, didn't expect the proposal to be so controversial... I'd like to
point out a couple of things you can do filtering at log time that you
can't at output time
* Leave "ignored" hits out of the node counter table.
* Ignore crawlers, unless a user agent column is added to accesslog.
Either one makes filtering at output time unacceptable for my purposes.
Since opinion is divided, how about...
<?php
$group = form_radios(t('When to apply filters'), 'statistics_filter_apply',
variable_get('statistics_filter_apply_when_logging', 0),
array('1' => t('At logging time'), '0' => t('At display time')),
t('If applied at display time, filtered accesses are logged to the database but ignored by default in reports. '.
'If applied at logging time, they are not written to the database.'));
?>
P.S. Is Preview broken on drupal.org? I hit Preview and just get the
edit form back...
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 01:34:49 +0000 : Boris Mann
+1 for this. Full logs should be the job of the HTTP layer (i.e. Apache
logs), not Drupal. Even Apache logs get rolled over -- there is no way
to do this in Drupal other than to discard the logs outright. If people
are so against it, then go for the admin option that Mike includes.
The goal of a statistics module is to give real results to people.
These filtered results give a better picture of what is actually going
on.
Much like archive, I'd almost like to see stats module removed from
core rather than be in the decrepit state it is today (often because of
the difficulty of getting core commits -- so as Ber suggests, maybe
xstatistics; and Ber, you maintain a lot of modules, maybe give that
one to Mike?). As it is, everyone just needs to install a separate
stats package to get real results for their Drupal site.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tue, 23 Aug 2005 02:38:13 +0000 : kbahey
I guess I have to agree with Mike and Boris here.
You now can get it way you want: You want logging of all hits? You want
logging for only humans? You can get either.
I have said before what Boris said: Drupal can never do the level of
logging that Apache does (for example, bytes per request, ...etc.), so
there will always be a need for Apache logs and tools that analyze it.
So, let Drupal statistics do what it can do best, and make it more
configurable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wed, 24 Aug 2005 13:45:52 +0000 : Bèr Kessels
an ever bigger -1 on the config options. These are very advanced
settings, that we really should not bother anyone with.
And still a big -1 on filtering the logs.
Why can you not log on output? Is that too hard?
Who says logs of bots are useless? They are the logs I am most
interested in, personally. For SEO and so on.
Not everyone can/has access to full server logs; Not everyone /should/
have access to them, esp. if we can do better. Esp. if drupal can make
much more sense in showing stats, then any log analiser can ever do.
Drupal knows what it is and does, awstats has no clue about the setup
of a drupal site.
And last: Who decides what a bot is and what not? That really differs
per set up. I have some crawlers that IMO need to be treated like
visitors, while I also have 'visitors' that look very much like humans,
but that are in fact just spambots.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thu, 25 Aug 2005 23:42:42 +0000 : Boris Mann
Ber: other than philosophical issues, have you actually run this code?
With the config options, this does not affect your world at all -- you
can still log anything you want.
"
an ever bigger -1 on the config options. These are very advanced
settings, that we really should not bother anyone with.
"
You're right -- but you're the one who insisted on having the option to
log everything, so Mike added the config option in.
"
esp. if we can do better. Esp. if drupal can make much more sense in
showing stats, then any log analiser can ever do. Drupal knows what it
is and does, awstats has no clue about the setup of a drupal site
"
Sorry, but Drupal will never be the #1 log analyzer in the world, and
shouldn't strive to be. That is the whole point -- this gives better
information about the stuff that matters.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fri, 26 Aug 2005 13:07:55 +0000 : Bèr Kessels
Moshe spoke to me about the initial ideas behind this patch:
performance.
If it is all about performance, and if the patch actually increases
that performance, I can understand the need for it. I misunderstoood
that that was the primary goal.
So, I beleive that performance patches need some form or proof. Maybe a
benchmark, or some figures on server load before and after?
Boris: no, Drupal will never be the #1 log analiser. But it can get so
close that joe average has no need for server logs.
And no, I did not run the code, for I saw the option in thed patch. And
thus i immediately understood that I could keep running my system as
intended/I wish.
But what I beleive it is the worst thread in OSS: "We dont agree on Foo
or Bar, so we put in Foo and Bar and make it optional." That is the #1
usability thread for most OSS.
Especially when these options can be replaced perfectly by well thought
out defaults (the Mac way).
So, when it is not primary about that option, but about speed, I think
the option will get a lot of +1s and make a big chance for getting in.
Just a note: IMO we should discuss introducing a section in the
administration called "optimisation" where all throttle, cache, memory,
etc settings can live. A place where joe average will not have to look.
For I beleive that settings like "log filters" frighten Joe Averages
away. They want it to Just Work, and they want the option pages to be
"Understood without having to read manuals".
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sat, 27 Aug 2005 20:36:23 +0000 : mikeryan
No, my primary motivation is not performance, it's to limit the
statistics to the hits that most matter to most administrators - real
human visitors other than themselves. The motivation for implementing
the filtering feature by not logging the "uninteresting" hits, as
opposed to implementing it at reporting time, is primarily two-fold:
performance, and functionally because crawlers can't be omitted at
report time (because the core statistics module doesn't record them).
On the role of the statistics module - I see it as providing
quick-and-dirty stats for low-to-moderate traffic sites. Logging every
hit to a database would frankly be insane for a high-traffic site, and
if you need more sophisticated reporting it's better to use a
specialized analysis tool rather than reinventing the wheel via a
Drupal module (now, a module that integrates one of those tools into
the Drupal admin interface would be very nice....).
Assuming that role for the statistics module - well, who are the
consumers of this module? Bèr, you and I aren't typical Drupal admins
(if indeed there is such a thing), we have a better understanding both
of Drupal itself and of the technical aspects of website administration
than most. And I'm telling you, I don't have the slightest interest in
tracking every individual Googlebot hit when I have the cumulative
crawler stats from the browscap module, plus the referrer log to show
me what search strings people are using to find my site. I believe most
people running Drupal sites are even less interested in that level of
detail than I am, and the filtering feature will help give them
statistics that are relevant to their needs.
And one more time - this is an *option*. Your point about overloading
the UI with too many options is valid, and if there wasn't any support
for this suggestion I'd drop it, but I really believe it's useful to a
large enough audience that it's worthwhile.
There is an alternative to putting this into core for 4.7 - I could
contribute a fork of the core statistics module with this support
integrated (what the hell, throw in statistics_trends too:-). This
would enable me, on my own schedule, to add something else I'd like -
archival of older stats. I.e., the current statistics module won't
retain more than 16 weeks worth of the access log, I'd like to archive
per-day counters beyond that, so statistics_trends could display
traffic trends for a year back (or beyond). Anyway, I will bow to the
community's will on how to proceed from here...
Thanks for listening.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 28 Aug 2005 04:01:16 +0000 : Boris Mann
I'm +1 for putting this in core in time for 4.7.
Dries/others -- this is definitely not a code issue: I've set this to
"ready to be committed", it's up to core committers to look this over
and give some guidance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sun, 28 Aug 2005 04:20:07 +0000 : killes at www.drop.org
Doesn't conform to coding standards.
I think that the idea of filtering on input is contrary to what we do
in other areas of Drupal. So we should filter on output here, too. If
your own visits make up a large percentage of your visitors, you
probably got too much spare time anyway.
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