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Hi,

I'm new to web design, and I manage a site that uses the "Webalizer" for
tracking visitors to the site.

Can anyone explain, in simple language, what these parameters mean: HITS,
FILES, PAGES, VISITS, SITES.

"Kbytes" is fairly self-evident as the total byte sum of data transferred
for a particular day/month etc.

I always thought "visitors" were the actual number of discreet visitors to
your site, and "hits" were how many times a visitor clicked a mouse on your
site.

Please let me know if I'm in the right ballpark...

Eugene

Eugene wrote:

> Hi,

> I'm new to web design, and I manage a site that uses the "Webalizer" for
> tracking visitors to the site.

> Can anyone explain, in simple language, what these parameters mean:
> HITS, FILES, PAGES, VISITS, SITES.

> "Kbytes" is fairly self-evident as the total byte sum of data transferred
> for a particular day/month etc.

> I always thought "visitors" were the actual number of discreet visitors
> to your site, and "hits" were how many times a visitor clicked a mouse on
> your site.

> Please let me know if I'm in the right ballpark...

> Eugene

"hits" and "visitors" could mean the actual number of times the page was
viewed. Including the number of reloads by any one visitor. You should see a
listing for "unique visitors" which will be substantially less than
"visitors". This is your true "hits" per page/site.
Webalizer doesn't really show "true" counts anyway. It's more of a general
range.
What you need is a counter system that ignores the same visitor returning to
a certain page within a certain time period.
They are out there.

Eugene wrote:
> I'm new to web design, and I manage a site that uses the "Webalizer"
> for tracking visitors to the site.
> Can anyone explain, in simple language, what these parameters mean:
> HITS, FILES, PAGES, VISITS, SITES.

http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/webalizer_help.html
Nico

Sorry, but this is still very confusing.

Even reading the Webalizer Help page (thanks Nico) has made it muddier than
ever.

Perhaps if you are well-educated in server technology or server-side
programming, it all makes sense. But for the scores of people who take on
website management without a programmer's background, it's all "gibberish".

NUMBER ONE, it would help if there were "standards" among Stats generators
as to exactly what, "hits, visits, pages, files, sites, etc" really mean.
Do these standards actually exist? If not, is it something that WW3 would
consider standardizing if they have that power?

So, all I want to know is this: what figure will reflect the number of
unique visitors I get in a day?

Thanks for any clarification.

Eugene

in post: <news:kk1Pb.2530$312.2391@edtnps89>
"Eugene" <> said:

> I'm new to web design, and I manage a site that uses the "Webalizer" for
> tracking visitors to the site.

Analog 5.32: How the web works
4. What you can't know.
You can't tell the identity of your readers.
You can't tell how many visitors you've had.
You can't tell how many visits you've had.
Cookies don't solve these problems.
You can't follow a person's path through your site.
You often can't tell where they entered your site, or where they found
out about you from.
You can't tell how they left your site, or where they went next.
You can't tell how long people spent reading each page.
You can't tell how long people spent on your site.
http://www.analog.cx/docs/webworks.html


--
brucie - i usenet nude

"Eugene" <> wrote:

>Sorry, but this is still very confusing.
>
>Even reading the Webalizer Help page (thanks Nico) has made it muddier than
>ever.

(http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/webalizer_help.html)

>So, all I want to know is this: what figure will reflect the number of
>unique visitors I get in a day?

None of them. That is impossible to tell from the server log files.

Hits is the number of requests made, for a single web page there will
usually be several hits (html file, stylesheet, images, etc.) and form
submissions, etc. are also requests and thus hits. This is not the
number of visitors.

Very important - not all requests actually reach your server and
therefore not all requests appear in a log file. A request may reach a
cache at the user's ISP or wherever and be served the file from there
instead of from your server.

So the hits count is an underestimate and all the following (which are
just different ways of sorting the hits) are also underestimates.

Files is fully explained in the help file. It's those requests that
actually lead to a file being sent back to the browser. So errors or
requests to check whether the file in the browser's cache is up to
date are not counted. This is not the number of visitors.

Pages is a filtered set of hits, as the help page said these are by
default requests for .html, .htm and .cgi. If your site uses some
other extension for its 'pages', e.g. .php, .asp, etc. then you will
need to reconfigure Webalizer to count them as pages. This is not the
number of visitors.

Sites is the number of unique IP addresses making requests. However
many people inside a large office may be connecting via a firewall
which sends its IP address instead of that of the users' indivdual
machines. Or a user on dial-up may get assigned a different IP address
every time he connects. This is not the number of visitors but may be
a very rough estimate thereof.

Visits is a an attempt to guess which requests should be packaged
together as a single visit to the site and is based on IP address (see
above for the uncertainty involved) and the time between requests.
This is not the number of visitors.

cheers,
Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

So... from what I gather ... it seems that there is no standardization and
no bullet-proof way of actually logging traffic to a site that gives any
accurate presentation of actual "visitors".

Therefore, all the hype about "hits" and "visits" per day that a busy site
may advertise, is all "inflated hopeful dreaming"...?

How about these installable server-side apps (like Sawmill) that proclaim to
accurately log your site stats? More mumbo jumbo?

Eugene

Eugene wrote:

> How about these installable server-side apps (like Sawmill) that proclaim to
> accurately log your site stats? More mumbo jumbo?

One logger/analyser is as bad as another for what you're trying to do.

Your web server's logs are for logging what your web server does -- not
for logging what visitors do.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
Contact Me - http://www.goddamn.co.uk/tobyink/?page=132