The RADsite Website Usage Statistics (WebStat) provide valuable information about the visitors to your website. They are generated from the server log using the Stone Steps Webalizer, and updated daily.
The reports can be accessed from the webstat directory of your site (so for www.radsite.co.uk the address is www.radsite.co.uk/webstat). If you would prefer to ensure the usage statistics remain private, please contact us and we will password-protect the webstat directory for you.
The WebStat reports begin with a summary by month showing the daily average and monthly totals for the last twelve months (if available). Click on a month to see the detailed report for that month.
A message passed from the visitor's browser to the web server, asking for a URL.
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique web address of a web page or any other data file on the web server.
The total number of requests made to the web server during the given time period. A single web page is usually comprised of many data files (graphics, photographs, style sheets, library files, and program code all count as data files).
The total number of hits (requests) that actually resulted in a data file being sent back to the visitor. Not all hits will send data, such as requests for missing files (404-Not Found errors) and requests for files that are already in the browser's cache.
The number of unique IP (Internet Protocol) addresses that made requests to the web server. This measure should be treated with caution. Different users on the same corporate intranet will usually have the same IP address. Internet Service Providers will share IP addresses among many users, and may allocate a different address to a single user for each request.
A Visit occurs when a visitor makes a request for a page on the web server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a thirty-minute period, they will all be considered part of the same visit. If more than thirty minutes elapse between requests from a singe site, a new visit is counted. Although not a perfect measure, visits is usually the most reliable indication of how many different visitors your website is getting.
Pages are the data files that comprise the main part of each web page. These often have an extension of .html (for static pages) or .aspx (for dynamic pages). Uploaded library files, graphics, program code and all other data files are excluded, so this is a fairly reliable measure of how many genuine pages have been downloaded from your website. Comparing Pages to Visits gives a useful indication of many pages each visitor looks at.
The Transfer value shows the amount of data that was sent out by the server during the specified reporting period.
This is the code generated by the web server in response to the request. Generally codes starting with 2 or 3 indicate success, and those starting with 4 or 5 indicate a problem. These problems are usually caused by broken links or temporary glitches with server availability, and are not usually a cause for concern.
This report shows all your web pages in order of popularity. The most popular page is normally the home page (indicated by /). If you have more than thirty pages, there will be a link at the bottom of the list so you can see the full list. The report only lists pages, although the percentages and total number are based on all data files.
These are the pages at the start and end of a visit respectively. The entry page list gives a useful indication of which pages are being linked to directly from other sites or search engines.
This report lists the URLs that most commonly give error codes. If the status code is 404 and the URL looks like a page on your site, then it may be that other websites are still linking to a page that has been deleted from your site. This report is also useful for highlighting hacking attempts on your website, where malicious users or robots try to call pages that might be administration tools or confidential files, or try to run scripts by exploiting common website vulnerabilities.
Referrers are the URLs on other websites that lead a visitor to your site or generate a request for a data file on your website. This report is effectively a list of the other websites or search engine result pages that are linking to your website. Please note that the majority of users will have a firewall or security configuration that blocks referrer information, so this is only a small proportion of the actual referrers.
When the referrer URL comes from a search engine results page, it is often possible to determine what search words the user typed in to find your website. As explained in the previous paragraph, this is only a proportion of the actual search strings because many users block referrer information.
The User Agent is the official name of the browser that the visitor used to view your website. Many of the hits will come from search engine robots, and those user agents that are likely to be robots are shown in green. The green user agents have contributed to the "Robot Totals" and the black user agents have contributed to the "Human Totals".
If you'd like to know more background information, there's a lot more detail on the Stone Steps website and a useful Guide to Web Server Analysis on the Webalizer website (Stone Steps Webalizer is an updated version of the original Webalizer).
If you encounter any technical problems or malicious attacks on your website, the original server log files can sometimes be used for diagnosis or investigation purposes. Please contact us if you need access to the server log files.