General Overview Defined   -   Detailed Overview Defined   -   Web Site Statistics Summary

Interpreting your Web Site Statistics Report

InterCape provides our hosting customers with Current/Historical Web Site Statistics Reports.  

These reports can be found by going to: <yourdomainname>/reports - 
example: http://www.test.com/reports - 
enter your assigned Virtual Domain Username / Password to view the most current web statistics.  

Reports are run every evening at 11:30pm.

The Web Site Statistics Reports is comprised of 2 parts: a General & Detailed overview.

DEFINITIONS used in the General Overview:

The General Overview of the site's performance helps you to quickly assess the growth and the needs of the site. 

HITS:
A hit is an action on the website, such as when a user views a page or downloads a file.  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, programs, etc...  and gets a response.  Each  valid line in the server log is counted as a hit.  Therefore, Total hits equals the number of requests for all objects on your web server during the specified report period.

also known as: an 'access' or an 'request'

FILES:
Some requests made to the server, require that the server 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'.

HITS vs FILES:
HITS is the total number of HTTP requests that the server received during the reporting period.  Any request made to the server is considered a hit.  FILES is the number of hits that actually resulted in something being sent back to the user, such as an HTML page or image.  'Total Files' and '200 - OK' totals should be the same.  If you add up the totals in the 'Hits by Response Code' section, it should be the same as the 'Total Hits' figure.  The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'.

PAGES:
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 the 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...  I'm not sure if I totally agree with that viewpoint.  

also known as 'Pageviews' or 'Page Impressions' or 'Impressions'

VISITS:
A User Session is a session of activity (all hits) for a single visitor of a web site within a timeframe. A unique user is determined by the IP address or cookie. By default, a user session is terminated when a user is inactive for more than 30 minutes. 

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 the user visits your site at 1:00 in the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered.  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 a pretty close "guess."

also known as 'User Sessions'

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 webserver 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: Technically speaking, 1 KB = 1024 bytes, but for simplicity 1 KB = 1000 bytes

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).

TOTAL UNIQUE SITES: 
The number of distinct computers making requests to your web server, i.e. the number of people looking at your web server. Note that this will under-report the total number due to folks using proxy servers. Ten people using a proxy server will only show up as one unique host.

also known as Total Unique Hosts.

TOTAL UNIQUE URL:
The number of individual objects that were requested from your server. Each object will usually be requested more than once, giving the higher Total Requests figure.

also known as Unique Requests.

TOTAL UNIQUE REFERRERS: 
This section identifies the domain names or numeric IP addresses with links to the site, in other words - this is the website that visitors came  from that led them to your website.  Referrers tell you how people found your website.  Typical referrers include search engine listings, reciprocal links that your website is listed in and paid/unpaid directory listings where your website is listed in.

 

This section identifies the domain names or numeric IP addresses with links to the site.

 

You can determine those sites that are providing the most referrals to your site. This can help when considering the most effective ways to attract visitors.

also known as Referring Sites

TOTAL UNIQUE USERNAMES: 
Technique by which access to Internet or Intranet resources requires the visitor to identify himself or herself by entering a username and password.  This identifies the true name and relative activity level of the users logging onto a server that requires user name and password. You may find more authenticated users than users (in the following table) as several persons may be using the same IP address. Since many ISPs (such as AOL) dynamically assign IP addresses, and since multiple users may come from a single IP address, authentication is the only way to truly identify top visitors.

also known as authenticated users.

TOTAL UNIQUE USER AGENTS:
This identifies the most popular WWW Browsers and Operating Systems used by visitors to the site. 

Hits per Hour - Average number of Hits / 24 hours

Hits per Day  -Number of Successful Hits divided by the total number of days in the log.

Files per Day - Number of Files divided by the total number of days in the log.

Pages per Day  -Number of page views (impressions) divided by the total number of days in the log.

Visits per Day  -Number of visitor sessions divided by the total number of days in the log.

KBytes per Day - Number of Kilobytes divided by the total number of days in the log

HTTP Response Codes: 
This section is useful in determining the reliability of the site.

2**  Success

200 OK


201 Created

Following a POST command, this indicates success, but the text of the response line indicates the URL of the new document.


202 Accepted

Request accepted for asynchronous processing.


203 Partial Information

Returned information may be cached or private.


204 No Response

Used for scripts that don't return a visible result.

3**  Redirection

301 Moved

Browsers with link editing capabilities should automatically link to the new reference.
The response contains one or more header lines of the form
URI: <url> string CrLf which specify alternative addresses for the object in question. The string is an optional comment field.


302 Found

Same as move, except that linking to the found address doesn't make much sense, since the document URL is expected to change.
This is the code that the httpd returns for a cgi script whose output contained a Location: header.


303 Method

Same as found, but a different method may be used to access the document; details about the method are sent in the message body.


304 Not modified

Use the local copy if you cached it.

4**  Client Error

400 Bad Request

Impossible request or syntax error


401 Unauthorized

Request should be retried with proper authorization header.


402 Payment Required

Request should be retried with proper charge-to header.


403 Forbidden

Authorization will not help


404 Not found

A document with that URL doesn't exist.


411 No such group

(NCSA httpd) the newsgroup in news:newsgroup doesn't exist.

5**  Server Error

500 Internal Error


501 Not implemented

``I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.''


502 Timed out

(Seen in practice, not in the specification.)

(HTTP Response Codes excerpted from: http://kbs.cs.tu-berlin.de/~jutta/ht/responses.html)

DEFINITIONS used in the Detailed Overview:

Daily Statistics for Month, Year:
This is the detailed breakdown of Hits, Files, Pages, Visits, Sites and Kilobytes recorded for each day.

Hourly Statistics for Month, Year:
This is the detailed breakdown of Hits, Files, Pages and Kilobytes recorded for every hour.

Top 30 of X Total URLs / Top 30 of X Total URLs by Kilobytes:
This is the detailed breakdown of Hits, Kilobytes for Total Unique URLs.  Top web site pages accessed from your website.  This identifies the most popular web site pages.  Most likely these pages are requested the most because of their content and design. Based on the theory that the most requested pages have effectively attracted visitors, you can use similar elements and approaches to improve the less popular pages.

also known as Most Requested Pages, Page Views or Top URLs:

Top X of X Total Entry Pages / Top X or X Total 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.

Entry Pages:
This section identifies the first page viewed when a visitor visits this site. This is most likely your home page but, in some cases, it may also be specific URLs that visitors enter to access a particular page directly. The percentages refer to the total number of visitor sessions that started with a valid Document Type. If the session started on a document with a different type (such as a graphic or sound file), the file is not counted as an Entry Page, and the session is not counted in the total.

This statistic can indicate how you might want to optimize the architecture of your site based on where visitors are entering. You can also determine which external links to your site are most effective. Consider updating meta-tags and links

Exit Pages:
This section identifies the pages visitors were on when they left the site. The percentages refer to the total number of visitor sessions that started with a valid Document Type. If the session started on a document with a different type (such as a graphic or sound file), the file is not counted as an Exit Page, and the session is not counted in the total.

Use this statistic to determine your visitors' satisfaction with their visits. Visitors may have left this page once they found what they were looking for, or they have lost interest or determined the content didn't apply, or for many other reasons. For example, if your top exit page is your home page, this may be an indication that you need a better approach

Top 50 of X Total Sites / Top 50 of X Total Sites by Kilobytes:
This is the detailed breakdown of Hits, Files, Kilobytes, Visits and Hostnames for Total Sites (people) who have visited your website.  This is how you know who is viewing your website.  For example, any hostname that contains mediaone.net means that they are accessing your website through a MediaOne Internet Connection, aol.com means that they are accessing your website through a AOL Internet Connection,  earthlink.net means that they are accessing your website through a Earthlink Connection, capecod.net means that they are accessing your website through a CapeInternet Internet Connection, etc...  If you do not see a specific hostname, then the IP number of the visitor is displayed instead - this happens because the IP address could not be resolved back to a specific hostname.

Top X of X Total Referrers:
This is the detailed list of top referrers.  This section identifies the domain names or numeric IP addresses with links to the site, in other words - this is the website that visitors came  from that led them to your website.  Referrers tell you how people found your website.  Typical referrers include search engine listings, reciprocal links that your website is listed in and paid/unpaid directory listings where your website is listed in.

Top X of X Total Search Strings:  
This is the detailed list of search phrases or keyword strings that visitors used to find your website in the search engines.  This identifies the phrases which led the most visitors to the site (regardless of the search engine), in other words, the phrases that people typed in the search engine.

This can give you an idea of how your meta-tags are performing with each search engine.  How are people getting to your site? Are they using the search phrases you expect? Do you need to use different keywords in page titles to make it easier for people to find your site via search engines?

Top X of X Total Usernames:
Technique by which access to Internet or Intranet resources requires the visitor to identify himself or herself by entering a username and password.  This is the detailed list of usernames logging onto a server that requires username/password.   You may find more authenticated users than users (in the following table) as several persons may be using the same IP address. Since many ISPs (such as AOL) dynamically assign IP addresses, and since multiple users may come from a single IP address, authentication is the only way to truly identify top visitors.

also known as authenticated users.

Top X of X Total User Agents:
This identifies the most popular WWW Browsers and Operating Systems used by visitors to the site.  Knowing which browsers most frequently view your website can be helpful for determining how to configure your site for optimal viewing.   Also, it is useful in determining the percentage of visitors using newer browsers and whether version- specific features (such as Java Scripts) should be implemented on the site.  Knowing which Operating System most frequently view your website can be helpful for determining what content to include on your website.

Top X of X Total Counties:
This section identifies the top locations of the visitors to the site by country. The country of the visitor is determined by the suffix of their domain name. Use this information carefully because this information is based on where the domain name of the visitor is registered, and may not always be an accurate identifier of the actual geographic location of this visitor. For example, while a vast majority of .com domain names are from the United States, there is a small minority of domain names that exist outside of the United States.

This information can help you meet the needs of your target audience as well as discover new audiences. Consider how you can make the content comprehensive and relevant to an International audience.