Wusage 7.1 Manual

Glossary of Frequently Used Terms

Term Definition
accesses An "access" is a single, successful request made by a web browser. Every successful request for any resource on the web server, whether for an image or a document or for another type of information, is regarded as an access. However, this definition can be changed through the use of the Allowed Documents (allow) and Ignored Documents (ignore) options, which can be used to include only accesses to certain types of resources and to explicitly ignore accesses to others. The definition of a "successful" request is determined by the Success Codes (successcodes) option.
agents An "agent," or user agent, is a web browser or other program used to access your web server. Most user agents are web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, but a significant number are automated Internet-indexing programs, such as Altavista.
bytes A "byte" is a single character of information. In the reports generated by Wusage, the "bytes transferred" figure refers to the number of characters of information that were sent to the browser. This is helpful in determining how much of the web server's connection to the Internet (how much bandwidth) is currently in use. It is especially useful to site administrators who pay for bandwidth by the megabyte or gigabyte on a regular basis.
calendar The Calendar of Reports is a web page which contains links to all of the reports that have been generated for each individual epoch, as well as the cumulative summary report. This is the first page you see upon clicking the View Statistics button. For more information, see the Interpreting Wusage Reports section.
cookies "Cookies" are pieces of information which can be stored on the user's browser, at your web server's request. They are useful because the web browser submits these cookies back to the server on future visits. This means that individual users can be recognized again by assigning a unique "cookie" to each visitor. Wusage recognizes the presence of such cookies in the format produced by the Apache web server's mod_usertrack module, and also in the format produced by the Microsoft IIS 4.0 web server. For more information, see the Server Configuration Tips section.
EML EML (Email Markup Language) is a simple alternative to HTML. EML is used to create plain-text email messages. EML tags are similar to HTML tags, but there are far fewer tags and the table mechanism is much less complex. For more information, see Email Markup Language (EML) .
epoch An epoch is an individual time period for which a report has been generated. Epochs can be days, weeks, months, quarters, or years, depending on the Daily Reports (daily), Weekly Reports (weekly), Monthly Reports (monthly), Quarterly Reports (quarterly) and Annual Reports (annual) settings. The Summary Reports (summary) report can also be thought of as a single epoch spanning the entire time range over which the program has been used.
macro A "macro" is a string which is recognized as a shorthand for another string. Wusage uses a report macro language to build its reports. These macros can be rewritten by the user in order to translate or otherwise customize the reports. See the Report Macro Language section for more information.
query A Wusage query, or "quick query," is a question which can be answered by reviewing the data which is preserved by the program for this purpose. For more information, see the Quick Queries section.
trail A "trail" is a unique path among the documents on the web server, followed by one or more visitors to the web server. Every visit to the web server follows a trail. Commonly followed trails represent useful information about the preferred routes that your visitors follow. The most commonly followed trails, above a minimum length determined by the Top Trails Report: Minimum Steps (trailminimumsteps) option, are reported as part of the Chart Top Trails (trails) report.
visit A "visit" consists of one or more accesses made by the same visitor, with no more than a certain time interval between accesses. The maximum time interval is termined by the Max. Minutes Between Accesses (trailtimeout) option.

When the maximum time interval has elapsed, the visit is considered to be over, and the next access by that visitor begins a new visit. However, if it can be determined that the next access includes "referring URL" information which points to the website being analyzed, Wusage will regard it as part of the same visit.

The identity of the visitor is determined by combining authorized user name, HTTP user-identifying "cookies", site (IP address), operating system, and web browser identifying information in order to produce the most unique "key" possible. Any such fields that are not actually available are not used. In the simplest case, where the log file does not contain any other user-identifying information, only the site (IP address) of the visitor is used.