Advanced counter help/ideas

I am looking for a way to track web pages. Unfortunately I don't have access to the log pages which makes things much more difficult. Also I don't have much experience with HTML and web programming.

We have a site at a university that houses all of the forms for downloading. We want a way of tracking what pages get hits and when. We have tried some of the services that will do this for us, but found that it will typically slow down the loading of the pages and we don't want to have to rely on an outside entity.

We have also considered putting a counter on every page....not a pleasant thought and inefficient seeming.

What I have though is if there was a way that we could increment a file with unique tracking info. So it would either

a) add lines of data (similar to a log) and
b) we could then parse that into something useful. and display it if possible...like webalizer or other such log analysis tools.

Anybody know of something that is already built? Most counters that I've seen aren't what I am looking for.

Thanks!
Aaron

You can find a bunch of scripts here.

Most of those require logs. I think the best solution for you would be A-1 Stats, which gives you detailed reports without using logs,. And, it's free, of course

Not really. Some do, but most work very much like the example you posted. They generate their own logs rather than use the server logs.

Doesn't use log files? Same here? Right... Besides, with the variety, it would be hard to choose. I provided the example I did because it was easy to setup and did exactly what he wanted.

Thanks for the replies guys. It looks like the A-1 Stats will do basic things and would work since it creates its own logfiles. It is crippled in that you can't delete older data through the web interface and is a bit limited in what it displays, but it would work.

I haven't looked at the rest of the scripts. I'll check them out next week.

Thanks for the suggestions.
Aaron