WebStats - Common Questions

Below is a list of common questions regarding reading and understanding the WebStats (Website Statistics) program.

What is WebStats?

WebStats provides daily analysis of your website's traffic and statistics, with graphs and charts and reports produced by Webalizer or Wusage.

These statistics detail how much web traffic you have and where it's coming from, with detailed data breakdowns including Search Engine queries (what people type into Google or Yahoo to find your site), which pages are being accessed the most, and even where your website is being referenced from.

It is possible to password protect your WebStats information from prying eyes. However, webstats will never display any sensitive information (database, login, or otherwise) that could compromise your website's security.

How do I access my WebStats?

To get into WebStats, you simply have to add the prefix 'stats' to the name of your website in an internet browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, etc).

Example: In your internet browser, change 'www.yoursite.com' to 'stats.yoursite.com'.

What is the difference between hits and visits?

Hits are the number of times your website is accessed in a given timespan. For example, if someone visited www.shortgrass.com 10 times in 1 day, it will show up as 10 separate hits. Hits are also inflated by search engine robots and web crawlers that search your site for information, so it is rarely an accurate representation of web traffic.

Visits a more accurate counts of how many people visit your website in a given period of time. Example: if someone visited www.shortgrass.com 10 times in 1 day, it will only show up as one unique visit for that day.

What is the difference between pages and files?

Files are the number of items on the page that were accessed and downloaded by your web browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, etc). A primary example are images from your website: If someone accessed your home page, and there were 4 images on the home page, it would count as 4 files that were accessed.

Pages are the number of pages on your website that were accessed. If someone only visited your About Us page and your Home page, that would count as 2 page visits.