Webalizer Statistics
The Webalizer
is a fast, web server log file analysis program. It produces highly detailed,
easily configurable usage reports in HTML format, for viewing with a standard
web browser.
The Webalizer produces yearly, monthly, daily and hourly statistics. In the
monthly reports, various statistics may be produced to show overall usage, usage
by day and hour, usage by visiting sites, URL's, user agents (browsers),
referrers, page and visit totals, entry and exit page totals, search string
analysis, and much more.
Below is a general explanation of your web statistics pages:
· 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 ('Pageviews')
Pages are, well, 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.
· 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 preconfigured '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, 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 Page Type requests, that is, for any request
whose URL is one of the 'page' types defined with the Page Type 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 a pretty close "guess".
· 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.
Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000 :)
· Top Entry and Exit Pages
The Top Entry and Exit Pages 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.