AWStats is a FREE Website Tracking and Analysis Software programme used to determine user and search engine interaction with your website.
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The number of people visiting your website. |
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The number of people visiting your website for the first time. |
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How many times every page is viewed. |
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Visitor duration. |
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Days of the week and rush hours. |
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Visits by search engines. |
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Key words used to find your site. |
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External website links towards your website. |
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Number of times your site is "added to favourites bookmarks". |
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Entry and exit pages. |
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Amongst many other features. |
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Unique Visitors:
A unique visitor is an individual vistor to your website within a month period. If a user visits your website repeatedly, they will only be referenced as a unique visitor once. |
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Visits:
Visits are a direct indication of the number of user visits or traffic to your website. If a user accesses any page of your website from the same Computer or Network within an hour time frame, it is counted as one visit. If the user accesses your website an hour or more after they exit your website then it is counted as a second visit and so on. |
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Pages:
The number of actual pages accessed by all users. (This figure is more representative of static HTML pages and not necessarily scripted sections of your website.) |
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Hits:
Every time a file is sent by a server, be it text, graphic, video and so on, it is recorded as a hit. Not a reliable gauge to compare different sites, as one page with five graphic elements will register six hits when viewed, while a page with no graphics will only register one hit. "Hits" is a phrase often thrown around but is generally not very meaningful in quantifying search engine traffic. |
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Bandwidth:
The number of bytes downloaded while visiting a website. Bandwidth relates directly to the amount and size of data "served" to users (by surfing to the pages). Pages containing a lot of PDF downloads or images will use up more bandwidth when visited than a simple page containing text. |
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Session Duration:
 Session Duration statistics detail the time a visitor spends on your website. Sometimes duration statistics are unknown for example when the AwStats programme does its daily update in the middle of a visit session. Session Duration is a good indication of whether users find your website interesting or not. If they spend short ammounts of time on your website, it may be a good indication that you need to step up the quality of content and your online promotion strategies. |
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Entry Page:
The first page a visitor sees of your website after typing in your website address or after clicking an external link (link on any other website). If you have a page optimised for a specific term (as would be done on the Grey Pebbles' Monthly Search Engine Optimisation Package) then a Google link activated by a user to that specific page would be the entry page. |
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Exit Page:
The last page of your website that a visitor viewed before exiting it. |
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Spiders:
 Spiders (AKA bots or robots) are used by search engines (such as Google) to collect information from your website in order to facilitate reliable search results. The Search Engine Spiders will usually index a website on a monthly basis resulting in delayed Search Engine rank updates. |
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 Key words and key phrases:
Words and phrases used by viewers searching for information. AWStats creates a full list off all key words and phrases that referenced your website when typed into search engines. |
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File Types:
AWStats gives you a statistical breakdown of the types of files your site consists of. File types are identified by shortened suffixes after the file name called "file extensions." For example: images often use the file extension ".jpg" and webpages ".html". |
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Visitor Domain:
Provides information regarding the names of the domains and countries that have visited your website. |
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Operating Systems:
An Operating System (OS) is the master control programme that manages your computer system (e.g.: Windows XP). All subsequent software installed thereafter is known as an application or application programme (e.g.: Microsoft Word). |
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Browsers:
 Every web page is built using code. Browsers are programmes that locate and display web pages from the World Wide Web and allow you to "surf" the web. There are many available web pages of which the most common examples are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape and Opera. The reason that some web pages display differently in different browsers is that each browser translates the code of the page in its own way. |
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Browser Plugins:
Modern browsers can present multimedia information including sound and video, though they often require plugins for some formats of multimedia. The most common example is the Flash Player plugin. The Flash Player plugin must be though of as an "add-on" feature to help you browser interpret code into animations, sound etc. |
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Connect to site from:
Visits can be directed to your website from external website locations. "Connect to site from" stats indicate where people are finding links to your website. (Directly typing in your address, links from Search Engines or links from other websites).
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