Server Information

What you need to know about your server - platform, software versions, paths, and more

• How do I see how many visitors my Web site is getting?
  
  Simply log in to your cPanel at http://www.yourdomain.com/cpanel and click the icon for "Web/FTP Stats" in the "Analysis and Log Files" section.
• What is the difference between hits, visits, and pages?
  
  A "hit" is the most meaningless number in your Web site statistics. It represents the total number of requests made to the server during the specified time period. If you have an html page that contains 2 linked external javascript files, a linked css file, and 5 images, one visitor visiting that page one time will result in 9 "hits":
  

    1 (the page itself)
  
  + 2 (two javascript files)
  
  + 1 (a css file)
  
  + 5 (five image files)
    9

  
  "Pages" is a more useful number. Pages refers to the total number of pages viewed on your site. That same visitor visiting that same page once will result in one "page" in your site statistics. If that visitor views 2 different pages on your site, that's 2 pages in your statistics. Or two visitors viewing the same page will result in 2 pages in your statistics.
  
  "Number of visits" refers to the number of times different people visit your Web site in the specified time period. That one visitor viewing that one page one time will result in one visit. If that same visitor views 5 pages on your site, it still counts as one visit. Five visitors viewing the same page on your site counts as five visits.
  
  "Unique visitors" refers to the number of different people who visit your Web site in the specified time period. One person who views the same page 10 different times will count as one unique visitor. Your stats would show 10 pages and 10 visits, but 1 unique visitor.
  
  The "Number of visits" and "Unique visitors" shouldn't be interpreted as absolutes, though. There's a "timeout setting" (30 minutes) in which visits by the same person are counted as one visit. If that same person visits your site and views one page, then goes away and comes back 5 hours later, that will count as 2 visits, because their initial visit "timed out." Of if a visitor is using an ISP that changes their IP address while they're online, they may be counted as 2 visitors, even within the 30-minute timeout period. Or a visitor using an ISP that has cached pages from your site on their server may not be counted at all. The reality is that there is simply no magical way to determine exactly what is a unique visit or what is a unique visitor. Even "Pages," which is the most concrete number, can be skewed if a large ISP (such as AOL) caches pages from your site. Then AOL users viewing your site would be seeing the pages from AOL's cache instead of directly from your site, and the pages they view wouldn't be counted.
  
  So you should view these numbers in light of what they tell you about trends in activity (is your traffic going up or down?) and things like what the most popular pages are on your site. The statistics are useful for gaining an overview of traffic on your site and how visitors are using your site, but the numbers can't be viewed quite as precisely as they might appear. This reality is the case with every Web site everywhere; it is not specific to Tropical Web Works.
• What are referers and hosts? And why is referers always misspelled?
  
  Referers represent the requesting page when a request is made to your server for a file. If the site http://www.linkfarm.com contains a link to your site, and someone clicks that link, you will see linkfarm.com listed as a referer.
  
  Most of the referers in your statistics should reflect your own site, because all requests for graphics, css files, javascript files, and so forth are all counted as requests. So when someone views a page on your site that contains 5 graphics, there will be 5 requests to the server from your own page.
  
  Referers from other than your own site are a good way to see where your traffic is coming from. They generally represent a link on another site to your site. A direct request generally means that someone typed your address directly in their browser's address bar, or they have your site bookmarked and they used their bookmark to come back.
  
  "Referers" was misspelled that way back in the dark ages of the Internet and its use has continued.
  
  Hosts are the ISPs your visitors are connecting through. A visitor whose ISP is Comcast will result in Comcast showing up as a host in your site statistics. It does not mean that Comcast has a link to your site anywhere.
• What is a user agent?
  
  That's a fancy term for "browser." It's actually a better term than browser, because it includes robots, handheld devices, Web-enabled cell phones -- it encompasses all of the different ways that people can connect to your site.
  
  Most of the user agents listed in your site statistics will probably be some version of Internet Explorer for Windows (MSIE), although other browsers are growing in popularity: Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Safari (for the Mac) and others are becoming increasingly popular as users discover the benefits of using more secure browsers that allow the user more ways to customize their browsing.
  
  You should strongly consider testing your Web site in at least the most popular browsers. Different browsers render html and css differently, and you probably want to ensure that your site is accessible to people who use browsers other than MSIE.
  
  Also, keep in mind that some browsers allow the user to change the reported user-agent. I use Mozilla, but I have to change its user agent to MSIE to do my online banking, because some stupid banks turn away anyone not using IE. But when I tell Mozilla to lie about what browser it is, it works just fine. Sometimes I forget to switch Mozilla's user agent back, and all the sites I visit after that think I'm using MSIE even though I'm not.
• What are the error codes or response codes?
  
  Response Codes are defined by the HTTP protocol. The vast majority of your response codes should be Code 200 - OK. This means a file was requested from the server, the server found the file, and served it to the requesting user agent.
  
  You want to watch for 404 - Not Found errors in your response codes. This happens when someone requests a file that wasn't found. It could mean that another site has a link to your site but they misspelled the filename, or it could mean you have a broken link on your own pages, or it could mean that you accidentally deleted a file.
  
  Here's a quick run-down on all the standard HTTP Response Codes: