Introduction to Web Stats
To access the Web Stats function, select Statistics
from the main menu and select Web Stats from the Statistics
menu.
Web Stats is a web server logfile analysis
program. It produces usage statistics from your website's server logs.
The statistical results are presented in both
columnar and graphical format.
Yearly, monthly, daily, and hourly usage
statistics are presented, along with the ability to display usage by
site, URL, referrer, user agent (browser), and country.
Please keep in mind that Web Stats keeps its
statistics for 12 months. To keep your statistics for a longer period
of time you have two options:
- Rename the stats directory, which is
located inside your public directory, or move it to another location.
Web Stats will create a new directory the next time it is run. When the
new stats directory is created, it will only contain the statistics
from the date it is created and the new reports will be generated from
the available statistics.
- Copy the contents of your stats directory to
another location.
Web Stats uses Webalizer Version 2.01
server log analysis program.
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Generating reports
Creating a report
When you log into Web Stats for the first time,
you will be prompted to create a report using your log files. Click the
Update Report button on the Web Stats
application. This button is available in both the Basic and Advanced
modes. To close the application, click the X button at the
top-right corner of the Web Stats application window.
To switch between the Basic and Advanced modes at
any time, click the User mode drop-down menu and select Advanced.
Updating the report
Your report can be automatically updated daily,
weekly, or monthly. The report is automatically updated monthly unless
you select another update frequency in the Advanced settings.
If you want to immediately update your report,
click the Update Report button in the Web Stats application.
This button is available in both the Basic and Advanced user modes.
Displaying the report
To display the report using the default report
settings, select the Display Report button. The usage
statistics for your domain will be displayed in a new browser window.
Creating a report using all log files available
in log directory (Advanced mode)
Web Stats allows you to create a report that uses
all available rotated and active server logs. In Advanced mode,
underneath the Create New Report button, make sure that the box
labeled using all available logs has been checked.
Every time you create a report using all log
files, the old report will be saved by default. Click the overwrite
old report check box to overwrite the old report. By creating a
report using all log files, all files in the stats directory will be
overwritten.
If the log files inside the logs directory are
deleted or moved to another location, you will not be able to create a
report using all log files. In this case, you must move the log files
back to the logs directory before creating a report using all
log files. The log files you upload or move to the logs
directory should have the standard name format of activity log files.
The old report and associated files will be saved
in a directory inside your public directory. The name format for this
directory is a combination of the date and time you saved it with the
word "stats" appended in front of it (i.e. stats_Jan18_2001_18_07_41).
You can download the contents of this directory using File Manager or a
FTP client. You can use these old reports for further reference.
If the activity log file is larger than 50K, it
will be rotated by default when you run the Web Stats. To avoid log
rotation, click the disable log rotation check box.
Excluding IP addresses and URLs (Advanced mode)
The Web Stats function allows you to exclude IP
addresses and/or URLs from your report. To exclude a URL, first make
sure you are in Advanced mode. Enter the IP address or URL you want to
exclude from the report in the Ignored sites textbox. After
adding any IP addresses or URLs you wish to ignore, you should click
either the Update Report or Create New Report button in
order to save the information you have entered.
To remove an IP or URL from the Ignored sites
list, select or highlight the address in the textbox and delete it.
Afterwards, you need to click the Update Report or Create
New Report button for the deletion to take effect. To cancel the
deletion, either exit the application or switch back to Basic mode.
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Configuring your report settings
Web Stats allows you to configure the report
settings as desired by changing the top table keyword options.
To configure the report setting, click the User
mode drop-down menu and select Advanced. Set the Report
settings as desired. Click the Update Report or Create
New Report button to save the changes. To discard changes, either
exit the application or switch back to Basic mode.
You must create a report
using all log files available in the log directory in order to
apply changes made to the report settings.
The Report settings options are described
in detail below:
- Time periods: The yearly (index) report
shows statistics for a 12-month period, and links for each month. The
monthly report has detailed statistics for that month, with additional
links to any URLs and referrers found.
- Top Entry and Exit Pages: The Top Entry
and Exit Pages give a rough estimate of what URL is 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. It will give a good
indication of the overall trend as to where users come into and exit
your site.
- Entry - This option specifies the
number of entries to display in the Top Entry Pages table. To
disable the table, use a value of zero (0)
- Exit - This option specifies the
number of entries to display in the Top Exit Pages table. To
disable the table, use a value of zero (0).
- Agents: This option specifies the number
of entries to display in the Top User Agents table. To disable
the table, use a value of zero (0).
- Countries: This option specifies the
number of entries to display in the Top Countries table. To
disable the table, use a value of zero (0).
- Top Referrers and All Referrers: The Top
Referrers option specifies the number of entries to display in the Top
Referrers table of sites that have referred people to your website.
To disable the option, enter a value of zero (0)
The All Referrers option will display a report of all referrers
to a site in a separate HTML page. By default, the All Referrers
option will be off. Changing its setting to on can enable the
option.
- Sites: This option specifies the number
of entries to display in the Top Sites table. To disable the
table, use a value of zero (0).
- URLs: This option specifies the number
of entries to display in the Top URLs table. To disable the
table, use a value of zero (0).
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Viewing reports
After your report is displayed, be sure to refresh
the page via your browser's Reload (Netscape) or Refresh
(IE) to ensure you are viewing the current report.
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Description of report statistics
To view statistics for a specific month, click the
month from the column of the Summary by month table.
The various statistics that Web Stats generates
are described below:
- Hits: Any request made to the server
which is logged is considered a hit. The requests can be for
any resource: 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.
- Hits by response code: After a client
makes a request to the server, the server returns a response code
(status code). The response code shows the result of the request. Hits
by response code represents the total number of requests that
received the same specified status code. Some common response codes are:
200 OK
302 Found
304 Not Modified
400 Bad Request
401 Unauthorized
403 Forbidden
404 Not found
500 Server error
- Files: Some requests made to the server
require that the server responds to the requesting client. This type of
request is considered a file, and the file total is incremented. The
relationship between hits and files may be thought of as incoming
requests and outgoing responses.
- Pages: Any HTML document, or process
that generates an HTML document, is considered a page. This does not
include graphic images, audio clips, etc. This number represents only
the number of pages requested. What actually constitutes a page is
determined by file extension.
- Agents: A user agent is a web browser.
The User Agent statistic details the type and version of the browsers
used to view the domain.
- Sites: Each request made to the server
comes from a unique site, which can be referenced by a name or an IP
address. The site's number shows how many unique IP addresses made
requests to the server during the reporting period.
- Visits: Request by the address is
calculated. If the time difference is greater than a pre-configured
visit timeout value (or has never made a request before), it is
considered a new visit. This total is incremented both for the site,
and the IP address. The time-out value is 30 minutes.
- 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 web server to produce accurate numbers
in the logs. In general, this should be a fairly accurate
representation of the amount of outgoing traffic.
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