Hits

One HIT is one request made to the server which is logged in the log file. The requests can be for any type of file, e.g., HTML pages, graphic images, audio files, cgi scripts, etc… Each valid line in the server log is counted as a hit. The total number represents the total number of requests that were made to the server during the specified report period. Therefore, it is possible for a one-page view count as multiple hits. In other words, if a web page has 19 graphic elements on it, then a user visiting that page will generate 20 hits (HTML page + graphics) Another site that is composed of 20 pages with just HTML text will generate 20 hits if a user visits every page.

Files

Some requests made to the server require that the server end back some information to the requesting client, such as an HTML page or a graphic image. When this happens, it is considered a FILE. The relationship between hits and files can be thought of as incoming requests to the server and outgoing responses to the client.

Pages

Pages are the number of web pages – any HTML document or anything that generates an HTML document would can be considered a page. This does not include the other file types that may be in a document, such as graphic images, and audio clips, etc…In technical terms what actually constitutes a page can vary from server to server. The default action is to look at the file extension. It depends on the stats server configuration as to what constitutes a page. Our server counts .htm, .html, .shmtl, .phtml, (basically .htm), .php, .cfm, and .asp.

Visits

Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address (site), the amount of time since a previous request by the same address is monitored (if applicable). If this time difference is greater than a preconfigured Visit Timeout value, it is considered a New Visit. The timeout value is set to 30 minutes. Therefore, if a user visits your site at 1:00 pm in the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00 pm, two visits would be registered. Due to the limitation of the HTTP protocol, log rotations, and other factors, this number should be considered a good estimate of the number of visits.

KBytes

The KBytes (kilobytes) value measures the amount of data that was sent out by the server during a specified reporting period. This value is generated directly from the log file. Technically a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, not 1000 bytes.

Hits are not a reliable way to measure website traffic. This is due to the fact any user can generate multiple hits through one-page view (loading images, text, links etc.).Visits are a more accurate way of judging the number of people visiting your site. Each visit is unique.