| If
you have a Unix based hosting plan then you can get access
to site statistics. Site stats are ideal for analysing your
site traffic. Who visits your site, where do they come from,
what is your most popular page, what time of the day, month
year are users visiting? To understand what the statistics
mean here's a brief
description.
Hits/strong>
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.
¼br>
Files/strong>
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'.
¼br>
Pages/strong>
Pages are, literally just pages. Generally, any HTML document, or anything that
generates an HTML document, would be considered a page. This does not include
graphic images, audio clips, etc... This number represents the number of 'pages'
requested only, not images or anything else included in the document featured
on the page.
¼br>
Visits/strong>
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 timeout' 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).
¼br>
Sites/strong>
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).
¼br>
KBytes/strong>
The KBytes (kilobytes) value shows the amount of data, in KB, which 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. (Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes,
not 1000 bytes)
¼br>
Top Entry and Exit Pages/strong>
The Top Entry and Exit Pages give rough estimates 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 a good "rough
guess" of the actual numbers, however will give a good indication of the
overall trend in where users come into, and exit, your site.
If you don't have UNIX hosting and would like more information
visit our hosting page www.lcn.com/web-hosting or
contact a member of the LCN team on 0870 744 0823 who
will be happy to help you. |