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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    95

    Monitoring visitor use of particular web files

    I know with C panels and awstats you can get a breakdown of file types as traffic but is there any easy way to ensure you havemore details on one particular file?

    Eg say I have a particular Pdf file and I want to know how many times it has been downloaded to a visitor's hard drive using "save target as" as well as separately actually opened and viewed within the browser. Is it possible to get a breakdown of visitor activity in this way?
    Last edited by Patr100; 12-18-2007 at 06:01 PM.

  2. #2
    The only way I know of is if you make an executable of your PDF that sends all information to your website. Problem with this kind of way, it's considered by antispyware programs as a malware.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Houston, TX
    Posts
    565
    Quote Originally Posted by Patr100 View Post
    I know with C panels and awstats you can get a breakdown of file types as traffic but is there any easy way to ensure you havemore details on one particular file?

    Eg say I have a particular Pdf file and I want to know how many times it has been downloaded to a visitor's hard drive using "save target as" as well as separately actually opened and viewed within the browser. Is it possible to get a breakdown of visitor activity in this way?
    To view how many times a file has been downloaded in AWStats, on the left sidebar, under Navigation, below the Viewed link, click Full List and you can filter that to see only that specific file. This is how you can get the number of hits to a specific PDF file, for example.

    Unfortunately, from the server side of things, it is not possible to determine how a file was handled on the client computer ("save target as" vs. "viewed"). This is due to the server simply recording that the file was transmitted, it does not know how the client machine is handling that file. There's no special way of downloading a file for saving it vs. viewing it in this scenario, thus the server is unable to acquire this information.
    David Grega
    cPanel Technical Product Specialist

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Posts
    95
    Thanks for the replies.
    I am possibily going to be involved in a site project that uses pdf files but am wary of their practicality as many users, including myself, often find them uncomfortable and cumbersome to view compared to html etc - still I would assume most people would likely open a Pdf first regardless whether they wanted to keep on their hard drive or read on the fly as it were, within the browser.
    So, having though about it, monitoring the files through awstats as simple satistics should suffice.

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