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Home > Technical
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DCANet uses Webalizer to generate free web statistics. View
your web stats at:
webstats.dca.net/your_domain_name
Webalizer is a web server log file analysis program which
produces usage statistics in HTML format for viewing with a browser. The results
are presented in both columnar and graphical format, which facilitates interpretation.
Yearly, monthly, daily and hourly usage statistics are presented, along with
the ability to display usage by site, URL, referrer, user agent (browser).
Click on the link below for a definition of the Webalizer
category:
Hits | Files | Pages
| Sites | Visits | KBytes
| Top Entry/Exit 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 sendsomething 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
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. Some people consider this number as the number of 'pure' hits... I'm
not sure if I totaly agree with that viewpoint. Some other programs (and people
:) refer to this as 'Pageviews'.
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 (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.
Note: in the 'Top Sites' table, the visits total should be discounted on 'Grouped'
records, and thought of as the "Minimium number of visits" that came
from that grouping instead. 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".
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 (some web servers do stupid things when
it comes to reporting the number of bytes). In general, this should be a fairly
accurate representation of the amount of outgoing traffic the server had, regardless
of the web servers reporting quirks.
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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