Interpreting
Your Web Stats
Hits
Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a 'hit'.
The requests can be for anything... html pages, graphic images, audio
files, CGI scripts, etc... Each valid line in the server log is counted
as a hit. This number represents the total number of requests that
were made to the server during the specified report period.
Files
Some requests made to the server, require that the server then
send something back to the requesting client, such as a html
page or graphic image. When this happens, it is considered a
'file' and the files total is incremented. The relationship
between 'hits' and 'files' can be thought of as 'incoming requests'
and 'outgoing responses'.
Pages
Generally, any HTML document, or anything that generates an HTML
document, would be considered a page. This does not include the
other stuff that goes into a document, such as graphic images, audio
clips, etc... This number represents the number of 'pages' requested
only, and does not include the other 'stuff' that is in the page.
What actually constitutes a 'page' can vary from server to server.
The default action is to treat anything with the extension '.htm',
'.html' or '.cgi' as a page. A lot of sites will probably define
other extensions, such as '.phtml', '.php3' and '.pl' as pages as
well. Some people consider this number as the number of 'pure' hits...
Some other programs (and people) refer to this as 'Pageviews'.
Sites
Each request made to the server comes from a unique 'site', which
can be referenced by a name or ultimately, an IP address. The 'sites'
number shows how many unique IP addresses made requests to the server
during the reporting time period. This DOES NOT mean the number
of unique individual users (real people) that visited, which is
impossible to determine using just logs and the HTTP protocol (however,
this number might be about as close as you will get).
Visits
Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address
(site), the amount of time since a previous request by the address
is calculated (if any). If the time difference is greater than a
pre-configured 'visit time-out' value (or has never made a request
before), it is considered a 'new visit', and this total is incremented
(both for the site, and the IP address). The default time-out value
is 30 minutes, so if a user visits your site at 1:00 in the afternoon,
and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered. Note:
in the 'Top Sites' table, the visits total should be discounted
on 'Grouped' records, and thought of as the "Minimum number
of visits" that came from that grouping instead. Note: Visits
only occur on PageType requests, that is, for any request whose
URL is one of the 'page' types defined with the PageType option.
Due to the limitation of the HTTP protocol, log rotations and other
factors, this number should not be taken as absolutely accurate,
rather, it should be considered an estimate.
KBytes
The KBytes (kilobytes) value shows the amount of data, in KB, that
was sent out by the server during the specified reporting period.
This value is generated directly from the log file, so it is up
to the web server to produce accurate numbers in the logs. In general,
this should be a fairly accurate representation of the amount of
outgoing traffic the server had, regardless of the web servers reporting
quirks. Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000.
Top Entry
and Exit Pages
The Top Entry and Exit tables give a rough estimate of what URL's
are used to enter your site, and what the last pages viewed are.
Because of limitations in the HTTP protocol, log rotations, etc.
This number should be considered an "estimate" of the
actual numbers, however it will give a good indication of the overall
trend in where users come into, and exit, your site.
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