Free Website Analysis Tools

Alrighty then, so you've completed your website, prettied it up with some nice looking graphics and launched it onto the internet. Now you're looking at it and wondering:

1. Did I do a good job?
2. How will I know if my website goes down?
3. Am I the only one visiting my website?
4. Are my pages getting too fat?

Etcetera.

Well help has arrived because below is a bunch of free website analysis tools that will help you find all this out...

Statcounter

This is an invisible hit counter that will provide you with some real-time statistics on how many visits and visitors you are getting to your website. It will also tell you when they came, what links they used to get there, what keywords they used in search engines to find your site, what browser they used, what OS they used, what screen resolution they used, your most popular web pages and more. This provides a more detailed analysis than the stats programs typically offered with web hosting packages (some of which require you to be some kind of rocket scientist to figure out how to customize). Statcounter's free service is intended for all those whose websites receive 250,000 page loads per month or less.

http://www.statcounter.com/

Google Analytics

Although designed primarily for those running Adwords campaigns, Google Analytics will provide detailed website traffic reports for anybody and any website. All you need to do is sign up for a Google account (free) and you're in business. Google Analytics provides detailed statistics about traffic to individual pages, average time spent on each page, bounce rate (how often a user hits one page on your site and then leaves), page entry and exit stats, keywords most often used in search engines to get to your pages and much, much more. Not nearly as idiot proof as Statcounter (see above) but the stats are much more indepth and can be used to set up a comprehensive ROI analysis if you've spent considerable time and/or money getting traffic to your site.

http://www.google.com/analytics/

W3C Markup Validation Service

This is a free service you can use to analyze all the HTML tags in your web pages to see if they conform with W3C Recommendations (uh oh... heh heh...). This has a number of uses including making sure your web page is cross-browser compatible and spotting those errors you've made that are making your web page look all cockeyed. You can have it check web pages by either inputting a URL to your site, inputting HTML code into a text box or uploading files from your computer.

http://validator.w3.org/

W3C CSS Validation Service

This is a free service you can use to analyze all the CSS you use in or along with your web pages to see if it conforms with the W3C Recommendations. After the analysis, if your CSS is good (according to their specifications) then it's termed as valid CSS. You can validate your CSS by inputting a URL to your site, directly inputting code or by uploading files from your computer.

http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

Netcraft - What's That Site Running?

This free service will tell you what OS and what server software your web host is running. If your site is requested frequently enough, it will also tell you its uptime. You can check this information for Iron Spider by clicking on the image below:

http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph

Web Page Analyzer

This free service will spit out a complete rundown on how fast your web page loads according to various connection speeds. It will also give you a detailed readout of the combined file size of all items used on your page (e.g. HTML files, CSS files, Javascript files, images, etcetera) and then issue advisories to cut back based on how well you do. (And yes I know... My web pages here at Iron Spider are getting 'fat'. I'm working on it... *ahem* ... heh heh...)

http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

DNS Stuff

This site has —among many other things— the best WHOIS lookup service I know of that can tell you what exists in your domain name's WHOIS public profile. It's important to check this now and then if only to make sure that the contact email you gave when you registered your domain name is an email address that you still frequently use. Many a domain name has expired simply because the domain name owner didn't get a renewal notice.

http://www.dnsstuff.com/

Browser Statistics

This has nothing to do with your site directly but nevertheless will furnish you with a detailed monthly update on what web browsers, operating systems, screen resolutions, color depth and Javascript capabilities people on the internet are using these days. This is invaluable to you when building and analyzing your web site as it's paramount to keep abreast of the latest trends and then adjust accordingly.

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

ServiceUptime

Here's a great uptime monitoring service that will email you if your website becomes unavailable. Their free service will perform a check every 30 minutes —24/7— on one domain. You can also have the option to change the domain name that is being checked (i.e. you're not obliged to stick with the domain name that you initially set up).

http://www.serviceuptime.com/