Understanding Webalizer
Technical Document

Hits (also see Request)
A "hit" is recorded when someone downloads some type of information from a web site. This could be an html file, a picture, a sound file, etc. A single hit is recorded for each file downloaded. For example, a web page with 3 pictures on it would count as 4 hits when a user views it. (There would be one hit for the HTML file, then three hits for each picture on the page.) A hit is referred to in our logs as a "Request". So when you see this line in the "Request Report":

Browser
The server also records what browser a visitor used. This is useful in designing your site. If you see that no one is using older versions of Netscape, you might feel comfortable implementing some of the newer features available with new generations of Netscape and IE. One item to note with browser count, if you have many of your visitors coming from AOL you may want to stay with a more simplistic design or make alternate pages for AOL viewers.

232: 0.18%: 3366: /yourdirectory/
That means you had 232 hits and had 3.3 Megabytes of data downloaded. Those 3.3 Megabytes are 0.18% of the amount of data downloaded off the entire server analyzed.

Needless to say, bragging about "hits" doesn't mean much. A site can have only ten visitors yet records hundreds of hits. A good way of determining a more realistic view of your site's success is to watch the page requests. This will only keep track of the number of web pages viewed not the graphics.

HTTP status codes
Webalizer recognises four categories of request, based on the HTTP status code of the request. For a more detail explaination of HTTP status codes click here.

First, successful requests are those with HTTP status codes in the 200's (where the document was returned) or with code 304 (where the document was requested but was not needed because it had not been recently modified and the user could use a cached copy). Sometimes the logfile line doesn't contain a status code. These lines are also assumed by Webalizer to be successes.

Redirected requests are those with other codes in the 300's, indicating that the user was directed to a different file instead. The most common cause of these requests is that the user has incorrectly requested a directory name without the trailing slash. The server replies with a redirection ("you probably mean the following") and the user then makes a second connection to get the correct document (although usually the browser does it automatically without the user's intervention or knowledge). The other common cause of redirected requests is their use as "click-thru" advertising banners.

Failed requests are those with codes in the 400's (error in request) or 500's (server error). They come about for a variety of reasons, but the most common are when the requested file is not found or is read-protected.

Errors
Error reporting is also logged in our program. The line that refers to "Total failed requests" lists the number of times a person typed in the wrong URL to a web page, or when a link was broken when the user clicked on it, etc. It is mostly just basic navigation errors. "Corrupt logfile lines" refers to just that, corrupt lines that were ignored. This is entirely normal and inherent in web server software.

Hosts
A host is a computer. When someone visits a web site their computer sends us the hostname (but *not* the e-mail address). This is recorded and is listed in the logs along with the requests and bandwidth each one serviced from your site. This is useful for those interested in marketing your web site. (Note: Hosts, as most items on the Internet, can be faked by advanced users wishing not to reveal where they are surfing from.)

Directories & Requests
The directory report lists the directories accessed by users. When a user visits a directory by typing in the url http://www.yoursite.com/yourpages/directory it is listed here.

The request report gets down to the nitty gritty of things. It shows the amount of times each file was downloaded. This allows you to extrapolate many things, including which pages are most popular, which pages may be bookmarked by visitors, etc.

Page
A page is simply a request that is a web page. Remember, requests can be: web pages, graphics, videos, sound clips and more. The number of requests or hits a site receiving is very different then the number of visitors or pages a site gets.

Request
When a web browser wants to view a something, it sends a request to the web server. The web server then sends the requested item (could be a web page, an image, a file to download) to the browser.

Referrer
Referrer is where a visitor came from. For instance, if your site is listed on Yahoo, and someone clicks on your listing, the web server logs that you came from Yahoo. The referrer would be "http://www.yahoo.com/". If a visitor followed a link to reach a page, the referrer will be the previous page. In the case of a graphic on a page, the referrer will be the page containing the graphic. When you see several references to your own sites pages this simply means that someone has clicked from your home page for instance to another page on your Website. So the referrer is logged as your home page instead of an outside source. How they got to your homepage is logged also of course.