Home > Features > Understanding website statistics

Many web hosting companies will offer free web site statistics for your site, but unless you know what the figures represent, you won't know much about your site traffic.

Using Webaliser Version 2.01 as our example, here is an explanation of the terms used in measuring website traffic:

Hits

A hit is any file that is requested from your site server. That file can be a html page, a GIF graphic, a flash animation etc. If your home page consists of the index page, three photos and a logo then each time someone visits that page it will account for five hits - one for the page itself, plus one for each image.
Note: Number of hits is NOT the number of visitors to your site.

Files

The file count tells you how many files were actually sent to a user's browser. The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'. Files represent the total number of 'hits' that actually resulted in something being sent back to the user. Not all hits will send data (e.g. Error 404 - Page Not Found or a request for pages that are already in the browsers cache).

Tip: By looking at the difference between hits and files, you can get a rough indication of repeat visitors - the greater the difference between the two, the more requests for pages already viewed.

Pages

Actual "html" and "htm" files that are viewed. If someone visits your index.htm 'home' page, that would account for 1 page. "Pages" doesn't count image file hits, therefore giving a more accurate count of how many times actual pages on your site were viewed. Also called metric page views or page impressions.

Visits

This is how many times someone visits your entire site. They may account for 38 hits and 12 pages but only one visit. If someone goes to another site and then back to your site without disconnecting from the Internet then it may still only counts as one visit (Unless the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes)).

Sites

This is where people are coming from - and is usually a connection point with their Service Provider. Every time someone visits your site they account for 1 visit. When they visit your site five times in one month they only account for one site.

Note: Many users can appear to come from a single site, and a single user can also appear to come from many IP addresses so it should be used simply as a rough guide.

KBytes

A measurement, in kilobytes of the traffic your site is attracting. This amount includes all images, multimedia and text files (HTML, ASP, and PHP). Monthly allowance is 5000Mb (5,000,000Kb). Unless your site gets a lot of traffic, you shouldn't have to worry about running over.

Entry Pages

This is where a visitor's session starts - the page arriveed at when first entering your site.

Exit Pages

This is where a visitor's session ends, where the visitor leaves your site. If too many of your entry and exit pages are the same, you may want to consider rethinking that particular page of your site. It can also mean that users are finding your site by mistake, or they feel the site is not what they are looking for.

Response Codes

These codes are generated by the web server and indicate the completion status of each request made to it. A common example is a 404 Error, which means the page a visitor is looking for is not available. It could be that the user has typed in the wrong address, or that you have since removed a page from your site. It's advisable to keep out-of-date pages for at least 6-12 months before deleting them from the server.

URLs

These are the addresses visitors are requesting. They may reflect a folder (/services/hosting/) or a specific file (/services/prices.htm). These addresses may be requested by bookmarks, links or typed in by the visitor.

Referrers

This is how people are getting to your site. This list may include search engine sites, people that have linked to your site, and direct requests when people have typed your web address into their browser.

User Agents

The User Agent shows how your visitors are accessing your site. What browser they use, what version, and what platform they are on. Some "webcrawlers" will also show up here, these are used by search engines and web indexers to gather info about your site.

Search Strings

These are obtained from examining the referrer string and looking for known patterns from various search engines. It can give you a good idea of the kind of search your site results from.

Countries

These are determined based on the top-level domain of the requesting site. This is somewhat questionable however, as there is no longer strong enforcement of domains as there was in the past. A .COM domain may reside in the US, or somewhere else. A .co.uk can be owned by anyone, but is more likely to be located in the UK. A large percentage may also be shown as Unresolved/Unknown. If your visitors use a dialup access points, these do not resolve to a name and are left as an IP address. (i.e. not a country domain.)