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For starters, skip the "hit counter" tools. Counters are misleading and ultimately worth nothing in terms of ascertaining your site's success.
A lot of web-hosting services offer Webalizer. There may be different "server-side" statistic programs like AWStats installed as well. It is up to you what to use, or you may even have multiple tracking systems simultaneously, if your host allows. (Statistics software causes a lot of work for the server, and many hosts do not allow more than one at a time.)
Figuring out Webalizer. (This is a partial list of the most useful stats only)
Finding the Statistics
As you connect to Webalizer, it displays a bar-diagram of the amount of traffic, typically for a year's time. For more information, just click on the month in the chart beneath the graph. After clicking on a given month, it displays a variety of statistical analyses of the traffic to your site. Much of the data you will not need unless you are a true guru.
Referrers: A "referral" occurs when a person clicks on your link from another site. Webalizer will inform you of the site they originated from. It can tell you whether or not the viewer found you through Google; it won't, however, tell you what they were searching for when they located you. When you register for Google Analytics, you can find out what viewers searched for when they clicked on your page. For each web page you wish to track with Analyitics, place a code snippet (script) in the footer that you will be provided with. You may need to have your website developer do this for you.
Files and Hits: Often these are the most deceptive figures of all. Whenever a URL is entered, this registers as a "hit". Even in instances where the URL is spelled wrong or isn't in existence anymore. Every download that goes through - for pages, pictures, sounds, video clips and the like - is registered as a file.
Page: When a page is legitimatly accessed, then it is counted as a page (This does not include images or flash objects not embedded in the page). Pages can have names that end in "html", "php", "asp", and so on.
Visitor: Normally the IP address is used to identify a visitor. This could be misleading since if one or more visitors use the identical ISP, or are hidden behind a firewall, they might not be correctly identified. In addition, if a visitor takes too long to move from one page to the next, they may end up being counted as two separate visitors. This usually occurs at 30 minutes but may be changed by the host.
Webalizer registers "bot" activity on your website - such as Google's "spider" Internet crawler. You can find evidence of these in the "sites" segment of the statistics. It might amaze you when you discover the amount of spiders coming to your site and the amount of bandwidth they take up in doing so. If you want to prevent undesirable bots from visiting your site, make or alter the "robots.txt" file on your computer. While the majority of spiders will heed your request, nothing legally regulates this.
A lot of web-hosting services offer Webalizer. There may be different "server-side" statistic programs like AWStats installed as well. It is up to you what to use, or you may even have multiple tracking systems simultaneously, if your host allows. (Statistics software causes a lot of work for the server, and many hosts do not allow more than one at a time.)
Figuring out Webalizer. (This is a partial list of the most useful stats only)
Finding the Statistics
As you connect to Webalizer, it displays a bar-diagram of the amount of traffic, typically for a year's time. For more information, just click on the month in the chart beneath the graph. After clicking on a given month, it displays a variety of statistical analyses of the traffic to your site. Much of the data you will not need unless you are a true guru.
Referrers: A "referral" occurs when a person clicks on your link from another site. Webalizer will inform you of the site they originated from. It can tell you whether or not the viewer found you through Google; it won't, however, tell you what they were searching for when they located you. When you register for Google Analytics, you can find out what viewers searched for when they clicked on your page. For each web page you wish to track with Analyitics, place a code snippet (script) in the footer that you will be provided with. You may need to have your website developer do this for you.
Files and Hits: Often these are the most deceptive figures of all. Whenever a URL is entered, this registers as a "hit". Even in instances where the URL is spelled wrong or isn't in existence anymore. Every download that goes through - for pages, pictures, sounds, video clips and the like - is registered as a file.
Page: When a page is legitimatly accessed, then it is counted as a page (This does not include images or flash objects not embedded in the page). Pages can have names that end in "html", "php", "asp", and so on.
Visitor: Normally the IP address is used to identify a visitor. This could be misleading since if one or more visitors use the identical ISP, or are hidden behind a firewall, they might not be correctly identified. In addition, if a visitor takes too long to move from one page to the next, they may end up being counted as two separate visitors. This usually occurs at 30 minutes but may be changed by the host.
Webalizer registers "bot" activity on your website - such as Google's "spider" Internet crawler. You can find evidence of these in the "sites" segment of the statistics. It might amaze you when you discover the amount of spiders coming to your site and the amount of bandwidth they take up in doing so. If you want to prevent undesirable bots from visiting your site, make or alter the "robots.txt" file on your computer. While the majority of spiders will heed your request, nothing legally regulates this.
About the Author:
Stephen Grisham, Sr. is a copy writer for InfoServe Media, LLC. If you are looking for web site design, Houston has it. If you just need a few changes to an existing site, InfoServe Media also offers website maintenance.
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