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Glossary |
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| Many of the words explained below are subject to interpretation. There is not a universally agreed-upon meaning for all of them. Specific terms, like "Hit," can be defined with relative accuracy. Others, like "visitors," are much more subject to a variety of definitions and assumptions. We are using conservative definitions to describe the language used in our reports. |
| .[Directory] | .[Directory] is used by ILux to refer to the root directory location, exclusive of any filenames. For example, http://www.domain.com. This location is differentiated from the default HTTP file found in that directory, usually DEFAULT.HTM(L) or INDEX.HTM(L). For example, http://www.domain.com/ index.html. The default file varies depending on server configuration. |
| Ad click | An ad click is the number of requests caused by the user "clicking" on an advertisement. The click usually invokes a script that tracks the click-through, or delivers the user to a specific page on the advertiser's web site so they can monitor visits. |
| Ad hit | A hit that successfully retrieves an advertisement. Ad hit counts are conservative because browser clients, proxy servers, and many Internet gateways may cache the advertisement, intercepting the client request, and retrieve the file for the user before the request reaches your server. Such cached requests can not be logged. |
Analysis object |
An analysis object is nothing more than a single query describing a specific set of criteria for producing tabular and graphical information describing what's happening on your web server(s). |
| Authenticated users |
An authenticated user is an individual who has previously registered him or herself on your web site. This can be as simple as entering a user name and password, or as complex as entering data describing their occupation, client operating system, income level, and/or other personal information. An authenticated user is basically an visitor that is known to you and your web server in some individual fashion. |
| Browsers | A browser is the client software a visitor uses to view the information on your web site. Browsers range widely in their ability to display the information types available on web servers today. ILux requires browsers that support Java and JavaScript. Some browsers are designed for visually-impaired individuals, and literally "read" the content to the browser user. Others are completely text-based and cannot display graphics of any kinds. The most advanced browsers handle sound, video, Java, and Active-X technologies. As web server content is becoming more and more interactive, the term browser is being less descriptive of the purpose the software serves. |
| Bytes sent | The bytes sent represent the volume of data sent through the pipeline (your Internet connection) to users. |
| Cookie | Netscape says that cookies are a "general mechanism which server side connections can use to both store and retrieve information on the client side of the connection." What this means is that means cookies are very small pieces of data (4000 bytes maximum) stored in a directory related to the browser you are using on your machine's hard drive. The data stored contains information the server can use to identify your preferences, the pages you've viewed, and the date you visited those pages. |
| Domain Naming System (DNS) | The domain naming system (DNS) is used to locate computers on the Interent by using alphabetical domain names instead of numbers (the Internet Protocol addresses). Each organization that wants to connect a computer on the Internet must request a primary domain name, which is assigned a unique numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address. |
| Domain name |
The domain naming system (DNS) server maintains a database of domain names (host names) and their corresponding IP addresses. For example, if www.ilux.com were presented to a DNS server, the IP address 206.86.22.1 would be returned. Domain names are typically assigned a range of subsidiary numbers for computers within the organization. For example, while the primary IP address may be 206.86.22.1, client machines and other servers may have IP addresses ranging from 206.86.22.1 to 206.86.22.99 or higher. |
| Domain type | The domain type is the two or three letter designation that terminates each domain name, typically signifying the type of organization or the country in which the web server is hosted. For example, commercial web sites in the United States are terminated with .com, although there are rarely enterprises abroad that also use this designation. Each country has a two-letter code as well (e.g., JP for Japan), and four letters used for specific military servers (e.g., MILT). |
| Domain visit | A domain visit is a portion of the record left in your web server logs when a user's browser at a particular Internet domain (as in www.domainname.com) requests data from your web server. The IP address is translated, if possible, using reverse domain name lookup, and the English-language domain name is substituted. |
| Errors | See status codes. |
| Event | You can monitor specific events on your web site and send an email to alert users when these events occur. ILux enables you to monitor changes to a page, a visit by a specific domain or host, the volume of bytes transferred per hour, the number of hits per hour, server inactivity, errors per hour. |
| File Access | File Access occurs when a visitor accesses,loads, or views any kind of file on your web site. Files can include, for example, a HTML page loaded in their browser, a perl script executed from a HTML form, or an Adobe PDF file downloaded. You can request an alert when a specific file is accessed. |
Filter |
A filter in ILux is an object that limits or constrains the information found by an analysis object. For example, you may request a report for all domains in a certain country; by applying a filter to it, you can limit the date or time range, the IP addresses of the visitors, among other criteria.
You can also use a filter as a parameter of the web site definition to exclude data from the ILux database. |
Folder |
A folder in ILux is a container for one or more reports. Selecting the folder allows you to run all the reports within it at once. |
| Frequently accessed directories | The phrase frequently accessed directories is used within Analysis Objects to refer to the physical directories under www root on your web server that are visited most often by web site visitors. |
| Geographical region | A geographical region is composed of a collection of domain suffixes identifying the geographical location from which the domain originated. This is typically relatively accurate, but not foolproof. For example, while the .com suffix is primarily used within the United States, it is occasionally used by companies outside the U.S. as well |
| Group | A group is composed of a collection of domains, domain types, and IP hosts for an IP address, based on an organization's Internet domain registration. |
| Hit | A hit is any connection by a client to an Internet server. A typical web site page contains a number of elements, including not only the HTML text but inline images, AVI files, Shockwave objects, and so forth. The page and each object is independently requested by the client from the server. Each such request constitutes a "hit." |
| Host machine | The host machine ID depends on the web browser used. It is either the IP address of the specific computer hosting the browser which requested data from your web server, or it may appear as the host machine's ID as entered by the user in the computer's properties. A particular domain may contain many specific host machines. |
| Java Virtual Machine | The Java Virtual Machine is a run-time environment for hosting Java applications. It consists of a basic set of java classes that are available to all Java applications on all environments. These handle basic user-interface functions like windows, dialog boxes, buttons, and scroll bars. |
| Keywords | See Referrer parameters. |
| Log File Extension |
Most web servers do not automatically log the location from which visitors accessed your web site, typically called the referrer page. You can usually modify a parameter of your web server to enable the web server to automatically record referrer data to the web server log. |
| MIME type | MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) is a standard for multi-part, multimedia electronic mail messages and World-Wide Web hypertext documents. MIME provides the capability for transferring over the Internet non-textual data, such as graphics, audio and fax. A MIME type describes the kind of data being transmitted, for example video/Quicktime for certain kinds of video, or text/html for browser hypertext markup language content. The IANA MIME types list details all MIME types currently registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. |
| Organization | A organization is a commercial, academic, nonprofit, government, or military organization that connects users to the Internet, identified by the group's Internet domains. ILux groups together all domains registered to the same organization as one organization. If a domain is unavailable in the database, one Internet domain is used to identify one organization. |
| Page requests | A page request describes the action taking place when a browser client requests a web page from your web server. It does not include any graphics on the page. The page and the graphics together constitute a series of hits on your web server. The page request only includes the HTML page itself. |
| Referrer domain |
A referrer domain is another web site from which a user reached your web site. For example, when a user searched Yahoo and clicks on a link to your web server, www.yahoo.com is the referrer domain. See also referrer page and referrer parameters.
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| Referrer domain type | A referrer domain type is a domain (e.g., www.bbc.co.uk) of a particular type or ending suffix (in this example, .UK) from which a user clicked on a link to access your web site. ILux enables you to produce reports for domains of a particular type and examine the referrer links from those domain types. See also domain type, referrer page, and referrer parameters. |
| Referrer host | A referrer host is the description of the machine which referred a user to your web site. |
| Referrer page | A referrer page is a link on another web site that refers to your web site, for example, a link in a directory that connects a user to your web server. This information helps you identify the relative locations from which your web site is accessed. This is distinct from the referrer parameters or keywords used in queries on search engines to identify your site. |
| Referrer parameters | The referrer parameters are the key words or phrases an individual enters in a search engine or directory to find a listing of your web site.
The search engine uses these values to examine its database and display entries matching the query. The values or parameters appear in the URL when the user first accesses your web site from a search engine, and, if your web server log supports this feature, the parameters appear in in your log file. You can examine your log file entries to identify the most commonly used referrer parameters. This can tell you if the terms you think people are using are valid or just how people are finding your web site. For example, the referrer parameters might appear as:
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| Report | A report is simply a container for one or more analysis objects. It is a convenient way to collect related analysis objects and complete a report covering a specific kind of information about your web site. |
| Request | A hit that successfully retrieves, or requests, content from the web server. Requests don’t include inline image, ad view, or ad click requests or errors. Request counts are conservative because browser clients, proxy servers, and many Internet gateways intercept some requests before reaching the server, and these cached requests are never logged. |
| Status code | Web servers use a variety of status codes, usually unseen by visitors, to designate the success or failure of the web server software to deliver data to visitors. These codes have specific ranges with particular meanings. For example, codes in the 300 range signify success; codes in the 400 range indicate failure. (HTTP) |
| Universal Naming Convention (UNC) | UNC is a form of redirection. Using
UNC paths provide you with:
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| User | A user is identified as the IP address of a customer who visits your web site at least once. Many organizations use Internet gateways, which mask the real Internet hostnames, so user counts may be conservative for those users determined through their Internet hostnames. It is quite possible that two or more users accessing your web site from behind a firewall would appear in your web server logs as having the same IP address. |
| User agent | The user agent is a value appearing in the web server log that identifies the type of web client used to view the web site. When the user accesses your web site, each browser type and version sends a browser ID to the web server to identify itself. Some browsers or other web tools (like Webcrawler, Freeloader, and so forth) can imitate, or "spoof," other browsers. This information is useful for differentiating and classifying your visitors, including the client operating system they are using and the type of client web browser they use. |
| Visit |
A visit is a series of consecutive requests from a individual IP address to your Internet site within a specific period of time. If your log file includes referrer data, then a new visit begins when the referring link (external to your web site) appears in your log record.
Even if your logs do not contain referrer information, ILux assumes that when a customer does not make a request (click on a link to initiate a new page, or reload the current page) within the next 30 minutes, the next time the IP address appears in the log constitutes a new visit. You can change these defaults at any time by editing the ILux server configuration file. It is necessary to make an assumption about the continuity of a user's visit because HTTP protocol does not allow the server to preserve any kind of information (or "state") from one page on your web site to another.(It is also possible that the gateway or firewall may cache your web pages and you will never see the hits or requests in your web server logs.) |
| Visitor | A visitor is defined as a series of hits, or connections to your web server, by a single IP address within a specific period of time. The default period of time for ILux is 30 minutes. |
| Visitors | See visit. |
| Visit duration | The visit duration is the time between the first and last request of a visit. This time doesn't include how long users viewed the last request of a visit. ILux assumes the last request of a visit to be 0 seconds long because the actual time can’t be determined. |
| Visit exit page | The visit exit page is the location on your web server that a visitor last views before departing from your web site. |
| Visit start page | The visit entry page is the location on your web server that a visitor begins to view the information on your web server. This initial page may be accessed by the visitor from a bookmark or shortcut they maintain on their client workstation, from a URL they manually type into the browser location (URL) field, or via a link from another web site. Only the latter method leaves a record of the originating location in your web server log. |
| Visit time interval | The visit time interval is the amount of time ILux uses to derive when a visitor on your web site ends one visit and starts another. The default interval is 30 minutes. This means that if a visitor to your web site shows no activity for 30 minutes, and then requests another page from your web server, the new request starts a new visit. |
| Web server monitoring | The web server monitoring interval is the frequency with which the ILux server monitors your web server logs. The ILux server scans your web server logs at predetermined intervals, giving you virtually real-time reporting on web site activity. The default interval is 600 seconds (10 minutes). |
| Web site inactivity | Web site inactivity can be inferred when the web server log is not updated within a specific interval. This figure is used to set alerts in ILux. You may need to study your web server reports and first determine the length of inactivity most commonly found before setting this figure in an alert. |
| Wildcard characters |
ILux supports the following wildcard characters:
Note that the use use of * as a wild card in ILux varies between Windows, DOS, and Unix.
If, for example, you have four log files:
On Windows, when you specify the server parameter for log file import, if you use
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