Statistics

[tapewolf]

As far as the 404s go, these are rather interesting:

/images/trans.gif   19   http://www.project-future.org/
/java/prototype.js   19   http://www.project-future.org/
/java/scriptaculous.js   19   http://www.project-future.org/

Any idea what this is about?  My guess would be some worm looking for common vulnerabilities.  I've never heard of them before and unless I'm much mistaken there are no references to them in any of the code.

[Databits]

In those cases I'd just ignore them.

[Xepher]

Hits are actual requests... every line of the logfile. Pages are only hits that are for a page (html or php) and doesn't include images, javascript, css, etc. Visits is... poorly defined.

Actually, forget having me explain it... take it straight from the horse's umm... we'll go with "mouth" :-)

http://awstats.sourceforge.net/docs/awstats_glossary.html

[Miluette]

Generally a better solution for those cases is a 301 permanent move redirect to the proper page. It's also extremely useful when trying to salvage your search indexes after a large-scale change.

Aaand now I've done that, since they're better than the refresh redirect thingy I used to use. Yay!

Apparently I've gotten a few "hits" from someone using IE2. I'm not sure what to think of this.

[tapewolf]

Apparently I've gotten a few "hits" from someone using IE2. I'm not sure what to think of this.

I seem to recall seeing CP/M users browsing mine.  While there might be some people masochistic enough to use IE2, at this point in time I'd guess they're either doing it for fun, or spoofing the user agent tag.

[Databits]

Or they're just people who are incapable of upgrading and are STILL somehow using i286/i386 systems with Win 3.1.

In either case, I wouldn't care at all.

[fesworks]

Looks like it only counts unique visitors for each month, instead of daily. I hope that it actually counts only uniques throughout the month, and doesn't just keep adding up daily uniques. I've been skeptical about some of the data so far. The stats have been counting for 5 days so far, and I already have 500 uniques? That sounds a tad high... granted I have more than one "site" on my account, but it still seems high.

Oh well. In any case, this is still a really cool and fairly comprehensive 2nd look (or should this now be my FIRST look) at site stats

[Xepher]

I've updated the stats URLs so they work a little more cleanly now. You should be able to visit http://username.xepher.net/awstats/ for any username. Likewise, http://domain.com/awstats/ if you have a domain linked here.

[Miluette]

Looks like it only counts unique visitors for each month, instead of daily. I hope that it actually counts only uniques throughout the month, and doesn't just keep adding up daily uniques. I've been skeptical about some of the data so far. The stats have been counting for 5 days so far, and I already have 500 uniques? That sounds a tad high... granted I have more than one "site" on my account, but it still seems high.

Oh well. In any case, this is still a really cool and fairly comprehensive 2nd look (or should this now be my FIRST look) at site stats

This. It doesn't seem like I should have gotten 1000 uniques in 5 days, even though I have several different sites and I am getting slightly more traffic overall lately. But I also have a bad sense of math in my head... I hope this is true, anyway. %D

Also, it links to a bunch of my pages incorrectly, like in the top 10 URL section. Files in, say, /lf/, or even lf/pages/, are linked as if they're in the root folder, which is wrong. But it's not an issue, just weird. :B

[Xepher]

AWstats logs the request's as recieved from the browser, not after the apache rewrites and vhosts have done their magic to map things to the actual file system layout. As for the unique hits... it is "true" in so far as that goes, but don't think that every unique visitor actually means a human viewing your page. ANY request from some IP that's not a known bot causes that to go up. Keep in mind a lot of search engines put preloading in their search results, meaning the top few results get preloaded by compatible browsers even if the user never clicks or actually views them.

That said, awstats is one of the foremost stats systems out there, and it's "truth" is pretty widely accepted as fact in most circles when you talk about such numbers. Sure, it's not real, but it's as real as anyone else's claim to have "X many unique visitors" is.

[Miluette]

Keep in mind a lot of search engines put preloading in their search results, meaning the top few results get preloaded by compatible browsers even if the user never clicks or actually views them.

That would explain a lot!

[fesworks]

Well, it's probably good to look at Uniques and Pages together. The closer they are together, I'd say the more "regulars" you have, or actual visits (visiting 1-2 pages and leaving indicates someone coming to see an update, specific page,.... or at the very least a click by a stranger, not liking what they see, and leaving )

The more pages viewed you have, in relation to uniques, should indicate a visitor looking through your archives, or at least clicking around your site. Regulars will already have clicked on everything, unless you updated a page somewhere.

At least that's my interpretation. Like When I check my GoStats after a Big Project Wonderful ad Campaign, my uniques go up, but my hits go WAY up.

[griever]

Thanks!  StatCounter, which I've been using, doesn't show image leechers.  Time to do something about that.