Webserver Statistics
Please Note:
This pages describes the webserver statistics only, i.e. it deals with requests to your webserver. This is not the same as (in fact: it's only a part of) the whole traffic of your server that is accounted for customers who pay per traffic.
- How to Access the Webserver Statistics
- Elements of the Webserver Statistics
- Statistics Glossary
- Logfiles
- Alternative Statistics Software
How to Access the Webserver Statistics
As a general rule webservers provided by zeitform Internet Dienste will log requests for your website(s) in appropriate logfiles. This log data will then be analyzed on a daily basis including an easy to read HTML output that you can access via the WWW.
To view these statistics you should direct your browser to the URL zeitform Internet Dienste gave you when your webserver was set up. The access is restricted and you will have to enter a user name and password before you can browse through the statistics. Both has been given to you by zeitform Internet Dienste, as well.
Elements of the Webserver Statistics
The webserver statistics consists of two different parts. First there is a page that shows you an overview (This is the first page you will see). This page provides you with a graphical as well as with a tabularly representation of webserver requests during the last 12 month (if available). Regarding the terms used in this overview please consult the section Statistics Glossary.
Second, there is a more detailed analysis for each month. You can reach these by clicking on the appropriate month name either in the overview table or in the menue in the upper left corner of the page (“verfügbare Informationen”).
Note, that you can review the date of the statistics page as well as the webserver and the period of time for which the statistics is valid on each page inside the orange box at the top of the page.
Statistics Glossary
The statistics uses several terms with very specific meanings. Moreover, by default these terms are German. Since the log analyzing software that was used to produce the statistics is a program called Webalizer and because it has a good documentation of the relevant terms we would like to provide you with a translation of the German terms only. If you have problems reading your statistics consult the webalizer documentation – especially the section “Output Produced” – and look up the terms you find below.
| German | English |
|---|---|
| Anfragen | Hits or Requests |
| Dateien | Files |
| Seiten | Pages or Pageviews |
| Besuche | Visits |
| Rechner | Sites or IPs or IP Addresses |
| kb | Kilo Bytes or KBytes |
| Verweise | Referrer |
| Eingang / Eingangsseiten | Entry Pages |
| Ausgang / Ausgangsseiten | Exit Pages |
| Anwenderprogramme | User Agents or Browsers |
| Status-Code | Response Code |
| Suchausdrücke | Search Strings |
| Länder | Countries |
Logfiles
The logfiles of your webserver used by the analysis software can be found in a directory on your server which we told you about as the server was set up. There you will find at least two files one having access the other having error in its filename. The access log (the one that is used by the statistics software) records the requests your webserver gained while the error log records errors when accessing your server.
Generally the access log follows either the “NCSA Common Log Format” (“CLF”) standard or the “NCSA Combined Log Format” (also known as “NCSA Extended Log Format”, “ELF”) standard. You can find notes on these formats on the server of the NCSA.
Furthermore, there might be some files with names that have a date and the extension .gz appended to the name of the access or error log. These files are generated if a log file reaches a size limit during a daily check. If this occurs the log file will be compressed using gzip and a new (empty) log file will be used instead. Since these compressed files are not needed by the statistics software it's save to delete them.
Alternative Statistics Software
As mentioned above zeitform Internet Dienste uses a modified Version of the Webalizer log analyzer. Nevertheless, it's possible to process the webserver logfiles with alternative software (that not nescessarily generates HTML output but an e-mail report etc.). If you would like to process your webserver logfile with such software on your server please contact us.
Apart from that it's possible to use a statistics software on your local computer. Since you have full access to the webserver log files you can download them and process them on your local workstation. There are quite a few analyzer programs available for Windows, Macintosh, various UNIX/Linux- and other operating systems. To search for those programs you could use the appropriate search interfaces on http://software.zeitform.info.
