Hit List Enterprise 4.0 has added lots of new features, including its one-of-a-kind complete error-404-analysis capability. This spares site administrators from having to take the time to test individual links on a Web site, and keeps users from getting frustrated by broken links. In addition, version 4.0 performs search-engine query analysis and studies usage to identify anyone who may have tried to compromise a company's Web-server security. Hit List is a potential candidate for widescale use by any enterprise organization.

Breaking New Ground I tested Hit List in one of Network Computing's Real-World Labs® at Syracuse University on a Dell Computer Corp. Optiplex Pentium II running at 300 MHz with 256 MB of RAM under Microsoft Windows NT Server. For the tests, I imported a 100-MB World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard log file, which consisted of 111 million entries--similar to what a large organization may have to deal with on a daily basis. For relative comparisons, I used the same system and log file that I had employed during our test of the beta version.

Hit List includes its own proprietary database engine, which imported our 100-MB log file in a speedy 26 minutes. It then required just 22 minutes more to create a report. This was an impressive feat, considering the software also performed IP and page title lookups during this time. IP lookups translate an IP address into the associated domain name; title lookups query the Web server for titles of the HTML pages, allowing the user to view reports by actual page titles instead of by file names.

You may prefer to use a relational database management system to import log files (possibly for historical data). During testing, I found it fairly easy to import log files into a Microsoft SQL or Oracle database. I used Microsoft SQL to establish a datastore and then created a system DSN within the ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) control panel. Once we had this set up, I entered the system DSN into Hit List's database manager and successfully imported my log files into the Microsoft SQL database. This all was completed in only one hour and 48 minutes; in my previous test of the beta, this same process required 11 hours.

Constructing Reports The reporting capabilities within Hit List have improved tenfold since the beta. For my tests, I created both HTML and Microsoft Word reports. The HTML report uses frames to make it easier for an administrator to navigate through it. While this task may not sound complicated, the Hit List complete analysis was more than 100 pages long. The report offered some unique information, including a security violation section, which flagged any IP address (or domain name) that tried to enter a password-protected portion of my Web site without a valid user name and password. Tracking this type of information over time lets a site administrator block threatening IP addresses at the Web server.

Hit List also makes it easier to track how users reach specific Web sites; it notes the keywords the user submitted within specific search engines. After running a report, I was able to see the top 20 keywords that users entered within the AltaVista search engine.

Jeffrey H. Rubin is an adjunct professor with the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and a consultant for Internet Consulting Services. Ricardo Reimundez is an independent contractor based in Syracuse, N.Y. Send your comments on this article to them at jhrubin@internetconsult.com or ricardo@reimundez.com.