SEO Warrior

Using WebLog Expert

The following subsections discuss some of the most important web stats metrics, with example screenshots taken from the WebLog Export application. I use the terms metric and statistic interchangeably, as I am referring to the same thing. Note that I will present equivalent information and graphs in AWStats and Webalizer later in this chapter.

Number of Visitors

This statistic shows the total number of visitors you have for a given day. Figure 6-1 shows a sample graph.

Figure 6-1. Web statistics: Daily visitors

These visitor numbers are the sum total of all visitors, including web spiders.

Unique Versus Total Visitors

There is a big difference between the total number of visitors and the unique visitors to a site. The “total visitors” metric does not discriminate against multiple visits by the same visitor. The “unique visitors” metric, on the other hand, tries to calculate exactly what it implies: unique visitors. Most web stats packages calculate this by calculating the total number of unique IPs. If you are not familiar with IP addresses, you can think of them as the unique address of every computer on the Internet.

Although the “unique visitors” metric is useful, it is not entirely accurate. Large organizations or even home and small office networks share the same IP address most of the time. In other words, if an organization has 1,000 people all hitting the same ...