WebLog Expert Help - Creating Filters

Filters allow to specify which information from log files should be analyzed. You can manage them on the Filters page of the Profile Properties dialog. It is also possible to create filters in the custom table properties. Click the Add button to add a new filter. You will see the dialog with filter settings:

Include and exclude filters

There are two types of filters: include and exclude ones. The program uses them to determine whether it should analyze certain information or not. If the information meets the criteria of at least one include filter and doesn't meet the criteria of any exclude filter, it will be analyzed. If no include filters are defined the "Include All" filter is used by default.

For example, if you define several exclude filters, only information that doesn't meet any specified criteria will be analyzed. And if you define several include filters, only information that meets the criteria of at least one include filter will be analyzed.

If you need to analyze data that meets any criteria, create multiple filters, not one filter with multiple criteria. E.g. if you wish to get statistics on requests made with Internet Explorer or Firefox, you need to create two include Browser filter with two criteria: Requested file and Country.

If you need to analyze data that meets several criteria simultaneously, create one filter with multiple criteria (see below), not multiple filters. E.g. if you wish to get statistics on requests for file /page.htm from the USA only, you need to create an include filter with two criteria: Requested file and Country.

Filter criteria

WebLog Expert supports hit filters and visitor filters. You can specify single or multiple criteria. Data matches a filter if it matches all its criteria.

Hit (request) is simply an entry (line) in a log file. By using hit filters you can specify which lines from log files to analyze. You can use the following filters:

Host:	Filter log lines by user's host (domain name or IP address). The program can automatically resolve IP addresses - see DNS Lookup for more information.
Requested file:	File requested (according to the log entry)
Query:	Query parameter
Referrer:	Referring URL
Status code:	Status code of the request. E.g. 404 is page not found error status code and 200 is OK (request successfully processed) status code.
Method:	Method used in the request (GET, HEAD or POST)
OS:	Operating system
Browser:	User's browser
Spider:	Visiting spider
User agent:	User agent string
Day of week:	Day of the week when the request was processed
Hour of day:	Hour of the day when the request was processed
Country:	User's country
State:	User's state
City:	User's city
Organization:	User's organization
Authenticated user:	Authenticated user name
Virtual domain:	Domain name of the site. This filter may be useful if the analyzed log file contains information about several virtual domains (sites) hosted on the same server.

Visitor filter can be used for more comprehensive analysis. It allows you to filter visitors instead of single log lines. E.g. you can analyze only visitors that accessed a specific page (file) on your site. You can use the following filters:

Visitors accessed the specified file
Visitors with the specified entry page
Visitors with the specified exit page
Visitors came from the specified referring URL
Visitors by the specified search engine/phrase

You can use hit and visitor filters in one profile. In this case WebLog Expert will first filter hits. Then it will group the hits by visitors and apply the visitor filters. After that both hits and visitors will be analyzed.

Filter values

·	You can use the following wildcards in filters: "*" corresponds to any number of any characters (or no characters at all) and "?" corresponds to any single character.

·	When you enter a full file name into a filter it should start with a slash. E.g. http://www.domain.com/page.htm should be entered as /page.htm

·	If you need to enter values with spaces in the Requested file, City, Organization, Authenticated user, Visitors accessed the specified file, Visitors with the specified entry page or Visitors with the specified exit page filter you need to delimit them with quotes.

·	You can set the Case sensitive option for some filters. Others are always case insensitive.

·	Filters that match file names also support the Match file names including queries option. This option is useful if you have the Truncate text after question marks (?) in file names program option enabled while you need to match a full file name including query like /dir/page.htm?query

You can also use the %PageFiles%, %DownloadFiles%, %ImageFiles% and %TrackedFiles% macros in the Requested file and Visitors accessed the specified file filters. These macros allow you to match files that have extensions specified in the program options as extensions of pages, download files and images, as well as tracked files specified in the profile properties. The macros can be used along with usual values/wildcards. E.g. %PageFiles% %DownloadFiles% *.ico will match pages, download files and files with the .ico extension.