Usage Statistics
In order to assist Web Developers in best utilizing their web space, The University provides the option of compiling usage statistics for their sites. For sites with a Virtual Host name this should be done automatically. Other sites may have to Re quest custom stats, which can be done by filling out the Usage statistics web form available here.The current web usage statistics are available at http://wings.buffalo.edu/webalizer/
For statistics prior to October 2004 please visit the old stats page at http://wings.buffalo.edu/stats/
Terminology
Below is some terminology you should be familiar with when viewing your site's statistics: (these are taken directly from the Webalizer homepage.) For more information on this tool visit http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer
Hits
represent the total number of requests made to the server
during the given time period (month, day, hour etc..).
Files
represent the total number of hits (requests) that actually resulted
in something being sent back to the user. Not all hits will
send data, such as 404-Not Found requests and requests 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, as the greater the difference between the two, the more people are requesting pages they already have cached (have viewed already).
Sites
is the number of unique IP addresses/hostnames that made requests
to the server. Care should be taken when using this metric for anything
other than that. Many users can appear to come from a single site, and
they can also appear to come from many ip addresses so it should be used
simply as a rough guage as to the number of visitors to your server.
Visits
occur when some remote site makes a request for a page
on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making
requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part
of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and
the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified
timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is
started and counted, and the sequence repeats. Since only pages
will trigger a visit, remotes sites that link to graphic and other non-
page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number
of false visits.
Pages
are those URLs that would be considered the actual page being
requested, and not all of the individual items that make it up (such as
graphics and audio clips). Some people call this metric page views
or page impressions, and defaults to any URL that has an extension
of .htm, .html or .cgi.
KBytes
(KB) is 1024 bytes (1 Kilobyte). Used to show the amount of data that
was transfered between the server and the remote machine, based on the
data found in the server log.
Common Definitions
A Site is a remote machine that makes requests to your server, and is based on the remote machines IP Address/Hostname.URL - Uniform Resource Locator. All requests made to a web server need to request something. A URL is that something, and represents an object somewhere on your server, that is accessable to the remote user, or results in an error (ie: 404 - Not found). URLs can be of any type (HTML, Audio, Graphics, etc...).
Referrers are those URLs that lead a user to your site or caused the browser to request something from your server. The vast majority of requests are made from your own URLs, since most HTML pages contain links to other objects such as graphics files. If one of your HTML pages contains links to 10 graphic images, then each request for the HTML page will produce 10 more hits with the referrer specified as the URL of your own HTML page.
Search Strings are obtained from examining the referrer string and looking for known patterns from various search engines. The search engines and the patterns to look for can be specified by the user within a configuration file. The default will catch most of the major ones.
Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.
User Agents are a fancy name for browsers. Netscape, Opera, Konqueror, etc.. are all User Agents, and each reports itself in a unique way to your server. Keep in mind however, that many browsers allow the user to change it's reported name, so you might see some obvious fake names in the listing.
Note: Only available if that information is contained in the server logs.
Entry/Exit pages are those pages that were the first requested in a visit (Entry), and the last requested (Exit). These pages are calculated using the Visits logic above. When a visit is first triggered, the requested page is counted as an Entry page, and whatever the last requested URL was, is counted as an Exit page.
Countries 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. An .IL domain may actually be in Isreal, however it may also be located in the US or elsewhere. The most common domains seen are .COM (US Commercial), .NET (Network), .ORG (Non-profit Organization) and .EDU (Educational). A large percentage may also be shown as Unresolved/Unknown, as a fairly large percentage of dialup and other customer access points do not resolve to a name and are left as an IP address.
Response Codes are defined as part of the HTTP/1.1 protocol (RFC 2068; See Chapter 10). These codes are generated by the web server and indicate the completion status of each request made to it.