Website Usage Statistics
The Webalizer Web Statistics program produces several reports and graphics for each month processed.
In addition, a summary page is generated for the current and previous months (up to 12).
Note: Statistics are compiled at midnight each night so today's stats won't appear until tomorrow.
What the Statistics Mean: Summaries
The Big Question: How many people are visiting my site?
What you really want to look at is the YELLOW number. This is a low estimate of unique visitors. Multiply by about three to get a better idea.
Click here for more about the yellow visit number.
Generally the first page you see is the yearly (index) report showing statistics for a 12 month period, and links to each month. The monthly report has detailed statistics for that month- click the month to see that month's details. The various totals shown are explained below.
HITS (Green)
Total number of graphics, script calls, webpages, music files, etc. requested
Any request made to the web server which is logged, is considered a 'hit'. The requests can be for anything... webpages, graphic images, audio files, video files, 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 period.
In the above example, they received 110,949 hits, meaning 110,949 requests were made to the server for files, pictures, scripts to process forms, template files, webpages, videos, music files, etc.
FILES (Dark blue)
Total number of graphics, webpages, music files, etc. loaded onto pages
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'.
In the above example, 81,370 files were loaded onto pages, meaning 81,370 photos, graphics, and webpages were displayed to visitors.
PAGES (Light blue)
Total number of webpages viewed
Generally, any HTML or PHP, etc. 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', '.php', etc. as a page.
In the above example, 21,706 webpages were viewed.
SITES (Orange)
Unique IP addresses people came from.
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.
In the above example, web surfers accessed the site from 3,130 different servers around the world.
VISITS (Yellow)
Low estimate of unique people visiting your site
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). The default timeout value is 30 minutes (can be changed), so if a user visits your site at 1:00 in the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered.
Many large ISPs such as AOL, MSN, and the like, will cache a site's webpages on their servers. That way when one of their customer's visits your site after connecting through AOL, the AOL server relays the information if someone else from AOL has already been there. So AOL's visit counts as One visit, but can represent Hundreds of visits from AOL users. So sometimes this number may actually be higher in reality.
In the above example, atleast 7,829 unique visitors visited the site, probably more considering that most AOL, MSN, and other large ISP users count as one user per day.
KBytes (Red)
Amount of data transfer
The KBytes (kilobytes) value shows the amount of data, in KB, that was sent out by the server during the specified reporting period.
In the above example, 944 MB were transferred that month.
What the Statistics Mean: Details
When you click on a link for a given month, it gives you a further breakdown of summaries and then details.
Hits by Response Code
- Code 200 - OK
Everything was returned ok.
Code 206 - Partial Content
Not all of the content was returned for various reasons. User could stop the load, change pages, or other things could've interupted.
Code 301 - Moved Permanently
The requested page was moved, but the user was redirected to the new page seemlessly.
Code 302 - Found
The requested page was moved temporarily, but the user was redirected to the new page seemlessly.
Code 304 - Not Modified
A current cached version (hasn't been modified since last viewed) of the webpage was available, so the cached version was displayed for a faster response time.
Code 400 - Bad Request
There is a syntax error in the request, possibly a script under development.
Code 401 - Unauthorized
The header in someone's request did not contain the correct authorization codes. They didn't get to see what they requested.
Code 403 - Forbidden
Someone was forbidden to see the document they requested. It can mean that a file or directory that is password protected with an .htaccess file was accessed with an incorrect password.
Code 404 - Page not Found
Document not found. The page someone wanted is not on the server. This often occurs from a broken link or an incorrect capitalization pattern in the URL. Sometimes this statistic is not shown in the hits by response code if there is a custom 404 page in place that redirects web surfers back to a page with links to navigate to where they can find the new version of the page.
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 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.
Referrers
This shows how people are finding your site, what websites have links to you or what search engines they are using. You can even click on those links to view the page that they came from. If your website is on the referrers list, it means that someone typed in your website address (URL) and went directly to your site.
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Top User Agents User Agents are the internet browser people are using to view your site. In this example, 63.97% of their visitors are using Internet Explorer (IE) and 21.93% are viewing the site using Netscape. |
Usage by Country
- Network
Web surfer connected from a server with a .net domain name.
Commercial
Web surfer connected from a server with a .com domain name.
US Educational
Web surfer connected from a server with a .edu domain name.
US Government
Web surfer connected from a server with a .gov domain name.
Non-profit Organization
Web surfer connected from a server with a .org domain name.
China
Web surfer connected from a server here in China (.cn domain name).
Note that many chinese users will appear as unresolved / unknown. This is because generally speaking there is no reverse DNS setup for most Chinese ISP's (so there is no ip address -> name available).
