This page aims to show users how to interpret traffic stats on their domain name web hosting account. Stats are generated/updated once per week.

The online example shows you what the output and graphs look like. This page doesn't cover graphs.

1. General Summary

The first part provides you with a brief overview of your site's activity.

Successful requests: 3,992 (2,216) Average successful requests per day: 333 (316) Successful requests for pages: 840 (471) Average successful requests for pages per day: 70 (67) Distinct hosts served: 591 (330)

Successful requests

Total number of web requests for your website. For example, a web page with 4 images on it would generate 5 requests when someone visits it. One (1) request for the page itself and four (4) for the images for a total of five (5).

The values in parentheses refer to the 7-day period prior to when the stats were last generated. For example, if the above stats were generated on October 12th, then there were 2,216 total successful requests for a 7-day period ending on October 12th.

Average successful requests per day

In the above example, stats were generated at the end of the 12th of the month and contain information for the 1st to the 12th. The total successful request divided by the number of days covered results in this value. In this case : 3,992/12=333.

Successful requests for pages

This is the total number of pages (not requests) only. If someone requests a web page with 4 images, you would only have 1 page requests, but 5 (1 page + 4 images) total requests.

Average successful requests for pages per day

This value is the same as the above divided by the number of days covered. In this case : 840/12=70.

Distinct hosts served

This is the count of total unique hosts (IP addresses) sending web requests to your hosting account.

This value is usually very close to the number of unique visitors your web site received.

2. Monthly Report

This simply gives you an overview of total successful request, separated by month.

3. Daily Summary

This report lists the total activity for each day of the week, summed over all the weeks in the report.

In other words, it shows you how many requests were received on Mondays, on Tuesdays and so on.

4. Domain Report

This report lists domain name extension (and hence often the country) of the computers/people requesting web files from your hosting account. For example :

#reqs: %bytes: domain ------: ---------: --------  1319: 32.66%: .net (Network)  1307: 31.74%: .com (Commercial)    723: 18.33%: [unresolved numerical addresses]    130:  3.57%: .edu (USA Educational)      97:  2.62%: .uk (United Kingdom)      85:  2.30%: .au (Australia)      54:  1.52%: .be (Belgium)      45:  1.34%: .nz (New Zealand) ...

This sample was shortened, real copies list up to 30 most popular domain extensions visiting your website.

The first value reflects the number of requests, the second value is the percentage of total traffic used to sent pages to this domain extension.

While the top 3 domain extensions don't reflect an actual country, the others do tell us where our visitors are geographically located.

The .com/.net entries are likely mostly US, but could be from other countries. When the web hosting server software can not determine the domain extension, it would be counted as 'unresolved numerical addresses'.

5. Referring Site Report

Here's where things get really interesting. This part of the report tells you how visitors found your website.

#reqs: site ------: ----   138: http://www.google.com/     99: http://images.google.com/     27: http://search.msn.com/     20: http://google.yahoo.com/     19: http://search.yahoo.com/     16: http://aolsearch.aol.com/     10: http://www.altavista.com/     10: http://auto.search.msn.com/      8: http://www.google.co.uk/      6: http://images.google.co.uk/      6: http://search.lycos.com/ ...

The above shows our visitors are using different search engines to find our web site. The software will not only list referring web sites, but also other sites which may link to yours.

6. Search Query Report

This reports tells you which keyword phrases people used in search engines to locate your web site.

#reqs: search term -----: -----------    22: toddler toys    17: woodentoys    14: pregnancy humor    13: newborn gifts     7: wooden train set     7: wooden baby toys ...

Keyword phrases are sorted by the number of times they were used to find your site. Real versions of the analysis software will show the 30 most popular.

7. Request Report

This section show the most requested files. Again, real versions would show the 30 most popular.

#reqs: %bytes: last time                 : file -------: --------: -----------------------: --------    348: 34.45%: Oct/12/02 10:48 PM: /    131: 14.36%: Oct/12/02 11:35 PM: /woodentoys.html     93: 12.91%: Oct/12/02   9:36 PM: /cgi-fulldiaper/basket     81:   5.40%: Oct/12/02   5:22 PM: /parents.html     80:   0.06%: Oct/12/02   4:40 PM: /robots.txt     75:   7.32%: Oct/12/02 10:48 PM: /woodenblocks.html ...

The first entry is the number of actual page requests. The second is the percentage of web page (not all files) traffic used to serve up the page in question.

The third reflects the last time the page was shows at the time the statistics were calculated. The final entry is the actual page.

The most popular page (/) here is the home page.

The /cgi-fulldiaper/basket entry shows all shopping cart requests. This is not the same as orders placed. When someone adds an item to their basket, modifies their basket, enters delivery information it as counted as a unique request.

The /robots.txt file is read by search engines. Even if you do not have this file in place, search engines will attempt to read it and it will be counted as a request.

To enable the graphical statistics on your website hosting account, use SupportBot to auto-install.