SearchBC.Com Web Site Statistics Information Web site statistics are setup when your web hosting package account is setup. You can view the statistics for your site at http://www.yourdomainname.com/stats/ You are able to access your statistics 24/7 and as often as you like. The statistics are generated from our web server statistics log and are current to the minute at the time of accessing. SearchBC.Com uses The Webalizer software to provide web site statistics. The Webalizer is a web server log file analysis program which produces usage statistics in HTML format for viewing with a browser. The results are presented in both columnar and graphical format, which facilitates interpretation. Yearly, monthly, daily and hourly usage statistics are presented, along with the ability to display usage by site, URL, referrer, user agent (browser), search string, entry/exit page, username and origin (some information is only available if supported and present in the log files being processed). Statistical Output Produced The Webalizer produces several reports (html) and graphics for each month processed. In addition, a summary page is generated for the current and previous months (up to 12), a history file is created. The yearly (index) report shows statistics for a 12 month period, and links to each month. Only 12 months of data will be stored, the excess is deleted (oldest data is deleted). The monthly report has detailed statistics for that month with additional links to any URL's and referrers found. The various totals shown are explained below: Files Some requests made to the server,require that the server then send something back to the requesting client, such as a html page or graphic image. When this happens, it is considered a 'file' and the files total is incremented. The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'. Hits Any request made to the server which is logged, is considered a 'hit'. The requests can be for anything... 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. 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. In general, this should be a fairly accurate representation of the amount of outgoing traffic the site had. Note: A kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000 :-) Pages Pages are, well, pages! Generally, any HTML document, or anything that generates an HTML document, would be considered a page. This does not include the other stuff that goes into a document, such as graphic images, audio clips, etc... This number represents the number of 'pages' requested only, and does not include the other 'stuff' that is in the page. What actually constitutes a 'page' can vary from server to server. The default action is to treat anything with the extension '.htm', '.html' or '.cgi' as a page. A lot of sites will probably define other extensions, such as '.phtml', '.php3' and '.pl' as pages as well. Some people consider this number as the number of 'pure' hits. Some other programs (and people :-) refer to this as 'Pageviews'. Sites or Unique Sites Each request made to the server comes from a unique 'site', which can be referenced by a name or ultimately, an IP address. The 'sites' number shows how many unique IP addresses made requests to the server during the reporting time period. This DOES NOT mean the number of unique individual users (real people) that visited, which is impossible to determine using just logs and the HTTP protocol (however, this number might be about as close as you will get). Visits Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address (site), the amount of time since a previous request by the address is calculated (if any). 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', and this total is incremented (both for the site, and the IP address). The default timeout value is 30 minutes, so if a user visits your site at 1:00 in the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered. This number should not be taken as absolutely accurate, rather, it should be considered a pretty close "guess". Referrers Are URL's, either on your own local site or a remote site, that referred the user to a URL on your web server. Referrers (Total Unique) The number of different users accessing your web site (example #1. if you have 20 single referrers from yahoo and 20 single referrers from lycos you have 2 unique referrers; example #2 - if your friend at telus.com has a link to your web site and 20 different people click that link and view your site, and your friend from at searchbc.com has a link to your web site and 20 different people click that link and view your site, you have had 2 unique referrers: your friend at telus and your friend at searchbc.com). Top Entry and Exit Pages The Top Entry and Exit tables give a rough estimate of what URL's are 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, however will give a good indication of the overall trend in where users come into, and exit, your site. User Agents (Total Unique) The total number of different internet browsing software applications used to access your web site (this includes, browser types, browser versions, operating system types, operating system versions).