Website
Usage Statistics

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23rd August 2007

Understanding Website Usage Statistics

Most paid hosting services provide usage statistics. Alternatively there are free and paid services available. However you get them usage statistics are essential for understanding the functioning of your website. A beginner might find such understanding more difficult than it need be without a clear appreciation of the meaning of the terms used.

An outline of some of the main terms commonly used in presenting website usage statistics is given below.

• Cache. In this context 'cache' refers to the memory used by a web browser or server to store pages so that they can be accessed more quickly. A web browser e.g. would not need to download a page which was already cached.
  
  
• Data Volume. Shows the volume of traffic from your website. Often shown as kilobytes 'KBytes'.
  
  
• Entry Page. The page at which the visitor entered your website.
  
  
• Exit Page. The page from which the visitor left your website.
  
  
• File. When a web browser request results in a file being returned to the browser this will be logged.
  
  
• Hit. A 'hit' is simply a request made to the server. So if a web browser requests a file from your server this will be logged as a 'hit'. Not all requests will result in a file being returned, for various reasons e.g. the browser might have previously cached the file or the file might be missing. The number of hits logged against your website is a useful indicator of activity but can be misleading in isolation.
  
  
• Page / Page Load. A 'page' is a particular kind of file recognised by its file extension e.g. htm or html (there are several others). For example, if your website is written in html then all its pages might have the extension 'htm' - each time a request is made which results in file with such an extension being returned a page from your website is logged.
  
  
• Raw Data. A log of all the hit data for your website. Usually only useful as an input to analysis software or if you are searching for a specific hit.
  
  
• Referrer. The webpage a visitor used to reach your website or page. Such pages might be, for example, on other websites or on a page of search engine results. Unless these have been deliberately omitted from the list some referrers could be pages on your own website where visitors are following links from one page of your site to another.
  
  
• Reporting Period. The period to which the reported statistics apply - so that at the beginning of each period the statistical values can be reset to zero.
  
  
• Search String. The keywords used to find your website through a search engine.
  
  
• Site. A unique device address sending a request to the server. Sometimes the geograghical location will be shown.
  
  
• User Agent. The different browsers, spiders and robots used to access your website.
  
  
• Visit / Visitor. A 'visit' is counted each time a user, recognised as a device connected to the Internet, makes a request for a page, provided that the user has not previously made a request during a specified period of time. If, for example, the period of time is set to one hour then a page request will be counted as a new visit provided that the device making the request has not sent a request during the preceding hour. So, during any reporting period, a user might make requests all day but only count as one visit provided that the time between the requests is less than the set period. Note that whereas a device can equate to an individual user this is not always the case. Reports might refer to 'Unique Visitors'. 'Returning Visitors' can also be shown.
  
  

Because of the difficulties and technicalities involved in presenting website usage statistics it is best to remember that they are not always what they might seem, at first glance, to be. Properly understood though, they are certainly indicative of the performance of your website and can tell you a great deal about how it is being used.

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© Trevor Womack 2007