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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.
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