Glossary

Area Chart - A type of graph that highlights trends in the same manner as a line chart, using colored areas instead of lines. In SmarterStats, the top 10 results are used to create the area chart. All other results are grouped as "other items."

Authenticated Visitor - An authenticated visitor is a website user who successfully logs into a website using authentication. Scripted authentication like ASP.NET Forms Authentication or database mechanisms do not count as authentication. Typically, authentication must be administrated on the web server.

Bandwidth - Bandwidth represents the total number of kilobytes that were sent to people visiting your site. Bandwidth includes all resources requested by the users.

Bar Chart - A type of graph in which different values are represented by rectangular bars. In SmarterStats, the top 10 results are used to create the bar chart. All other results are grouped as "other items."

Browser - Browser represents the program the website visitor used to view your website. Some typical browsers are Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, and Opera.

Current Page - The current page is the most recent page that the visitor requested on the site.

Directory - A collection of folders that contain files, regardless of their file extensions, associated with a website. Statistics do not include subdirectories, as those are reported separately.

Document - A file that is readable from a web browser using either the browser itself or a third-party plug-in or product. By default, SmarterStats considers the following extensions to be documents: .CHM, .DOC, .PDF, .PS, .RTF, .TXT, .XLS, .XML. Your administrator may set up additional extensions as documents.

Download - A file that can be downloaded, or saved, to a visitor's local machine. Generally, downloads are specified as such by the site owner, and given either freely or charged on a per-download basis. By default, SmarterStats considers the following extensions to be downloads: .ASF, .AVI, .DOC, .EXE, .GZIP, .MP2, .MP3, .MPEG, .MPG, .MSI, .MSP, .QT, .QTM, .RA, .RAR, .SWF, .TAR.BZ, .TAR.BZ2, .TAR.GZ, .WMA, .WMF, .WPD, .ZIP. Your administrator may set up additional extensions as downloads.

Entry File - The entry file for a visit is the very first file that completed downloading for the visitor. These may frequently be images.

Entry Page - The entry page is the first page a website visitor goes to during a visit

Exclusion - An exclusion is a pre-filter used to remove log file entries that may not be pertinent to a site's statistics. A common usage of exclusions is to ignore internal IP addresses or directories with temporary files.

Exit Page - The page a visitor leaving your site was on prior to moving to a different website.

Extension - The extension represents the type of file hit by a website request.

File - Any and all file extensions that were viewed, visited, hit or downloaded from a particular website.

First Hit - First Hit represents the date and time that the visitor first hit your website during this visit.

Hits - A hit represents a request to your website for a file such as an image, a web page, or a CGI script. One web page may contain several related resources, and as a result, a visitor viewing one web page may trigger several hits. Hits generated as a result of an error (either a 400 or 500 level error) are not counted as actual hits to your site, and are kept separate from successful hits.

Image - Images are files that represent graphical bitmaps. By default, SmarterStats considers the following to be images: .BMP, .CDR, .CGM, .DIB, .EPS, .GIF, .ICO, .IMG, .JAS, .JPEG, .JPG, .PCX, .PIC, .PNG, .PSD, .TIF, .TIFF. Your administrator may set up specific extensions as images. Typically, a single web page can link to several images.

Inclusion - An inclusion is a pre-filter that is used to limit a site's statistics to only specific items of a log file. Inclusions are typically used to restrict a site's statistics to only one subdirectory of a larger parent site.

Keyword - A keyword represents a single word in the search string text used by web users to get to your site.

Last Hit - Last Hit represents the date and time that the visitor was last active on your site

Line Chart - A type of graph that highlights trends by drawing connecting lines between data points. In SmarterStats, the top 10 results are used to create the line chart. All other results are grouped as "other items."

New Visitors - A new visitor represents a visit by a computer that has not yet been to the website in the time period of the report.

Page - The basic building blocks of any website. A website generally contains a collection of different pages that are accessible and viewable via a web browser. By default, SmarterStats considers the following extensions to be pages: .ASP, .ASPX, .CFC, .CFM, .CFMX, .CFML, .CGI, .HTM, .HTML, .IDA, .IDC, .JHTM, .JHTML, .JSP, .JWS, .MHT, .MHTML, .MV, .PHP, .PHP3, .PHTM, .PHTML, .PL, .SHTM, .SHTML, .STM, .WML, .XDL, .XHTML, .XML.

Page Views - A page view is a successful request for a file on your website that is considered to be a page. These usually mean files with extensions such as .txt, .asp, .aspx, .php, etc. Views generated as a result of an error (either a 400 or 500 level error) are not counted as actual views for your site, and are kept separate from successful views.

PageRank - A Google patented method that uses a link analysis algorithm to measure the importance of a webpage. PageRank values range from 0 to 10, with 10 being the best. While no specific page is mentioned in SmarterStats' PageRank reports, it is possible that the PageRank reported in SmarterStats is only for your site's homepage.

Phrase - A phrase shows the entire search string text used by web users to get to your site.

Pie Chart - A type of graph that represents data as wedges in a circle, or pie shape, so that the relationship between the data can be seen and analyzed more easily. In SmarterStats, the top five results are used to create the pie chart. All other results are grouped as "other items."

Platform - Platform represents the operating system that the website visitor is using. Some typical platforms are Windows 2003 Server, Windows XP, and Mac OSX.

Popularity - Refers to the number of links to your website from pages indexed in a search engine.

Query Item - A query item is an individual parameter passed to a web page, typically a script.

Query String - Query strings are parameters that are passed to web pages in the URL string, commonly scripted pages.

Query Variable - Pages built using a variety of different scripting environments and/or scripting languages. Generally, this includes any page with an extension other than .htm or .html. By default, SmarterStats considers the following extensions to be query variables: .ASP, .ASPX, .CFC, .CFM, .CFML, .CFMX, .CGI, .DLL, .JHTM, .JHTML, .JSP, .JWS, .MHT, .MHTML, .MV, .PHP, .PHP3, .PHTML, .PL, .SHTM, .SHTML, .STM, .WML, .XDL, .XHTML, .XML. Your administrator may set up additional extensions as downloads.

Rank - Rank indicates the position of the item when ordered.

Referrer Host - The Referrer Host represents the website from which visitors to your site came from. A value of "No Referrer" represents a visitor typing your website directly into the browser, using a bookmark, or following a link from an email client.

Referrer URL - The Referrer URL represents the exact web page from which visitors to your site came from. A value of "No Referrer" represents a visitor typing your website directly into the browser, using a bookmark, or following a link from an email client.

Result Code - Result codes are returned by your web server, and indicate whether or not resources were successfully downloaded from your website. Large numbers of 404 errors, for example, may indicate a problem with your website links.

Return Visitors - A return visit is counted when a computer that has already been to the site before returns for another visit.

Return Visits - Return visits represent the times when previous visitors come back to the site again. A high percentage of return visits to total visits indicate that your website is holding visitors' attention.

Saturation - Refers to the number of pages that a search engine has indexed from your website.

Score - This is the total for the column shown (e.g. bytes in, bytes out, or time taken) divided by the total for that column for all items multiplied by 10000. It is used to show what pages need the most optimization. Ex. (itemBytesIn/totalBytesin)*10000. When referring to the results listed by the competitor suggestion tool, score refers to the sum of competitor's position rankings across all selected search engines. The actual formula used is Number of Search Engines * (Max Results - Ranking) = Score.

Search Engine - A search engine is a website whose primary function is providing a search engine for gathering and reporting information available on the Internet or a portion of the Internet.

Spider - A spider is an automated program that searches and indexes websites, usually with the intent of providing information for search engines.

Unique Visitors - A unique visitor represents any number of visits from the same computer. If a person returns to the site again, a visit is counted, but a unique visit is not.

User Agent - The User Agent string is sent by browsers to identify the browser, the operating system they are running on, and installed browser extensions. There are countless varieties of user agent strings.

Visit Length - The number of seconds that a visit lasts. On reports dealing with visit length, the average visit length is calculated and shown for all visits. Visits length assumes that the visitor stays several seconds after their last hit.

Visits - Visits represent the total number of times people have visited your website. A visit is counted whenever a website user requests one or more files from the web server. If the user becomes idle for more than a certain amount of time (usually 20 minutes), a new visit is generated when they come back.

Web Site Path (Path) - When a visitor moves from page to page within a site, they follow, or generate, a specific path for their movement. For example, a visitor enters your site via the Default.html page, clicks on a link to Product.html, proceeds to Order.html, and finally leaves via Thank_you.html. The path for this visit would look like: default.html/product.html/order.html/thank_you.html.