Files
Some requests made to the server, require that the server then send
something back to the requesting client, such as a html page or graphic
image. When this happens, it is considered a 'file' and the files
total is incremented. The relationship between 'hits' and 'files' can
be thought of as 'incoming requests' and 'outgoing responses'.
Pages
Pages are, well, pages! Generally, any HTML document, or anything
that generates an HTML document, would be considered a page. This
does not include the other stuff that goes into a document, such as
graphic images, audio clips, etc... This number represents the number
of 'pages' requested only, and does not include the other 'stuff' that
is in the page. What actually constitutes a 'page' can vary from
server to server. The default action is to treat anything with the
extension '.htm', '.html' or '.cgi' as a page. A lot of sites will
probably define other extensions, such as '.phtml', '.php3' and '.pl'
as pages as well. Some people consider this number as the number of
'pure' hits... I'm not sure if I totally agree with that viewpoint.
Some other programs (and people
refer to this as 'Pageviews'.
Sites
Each request made to the server comes from a unique 'site', which can
be referenced by a name or ultimately, an IP address. The 'sites'
number shows how many unique IP addresses made requests to the server
during the reporting time period. This DOES NOT mean the number of
unique individual users (real people) that visited, which is impossible
to determine using just logs and the HTTP protocol (however, this
number might be about as close as you will get).
Visits
Whenever a request is made to the server from a given IP address
(site), the amount of time since a previous request by the address
is calculated (if any). If the time difference is greater than a
pre-configured 'visit timeout' value (or has never made a request before),
it is considered a 'new visit', and this total is incremented (both
for the site, and the IP address). The default timeout value is 30
minutes (can be changed), so if a user visits your site at 1:00 in
the afternoon, and then returns at 3:00, two visits would be registered.
Note: in the 'Top Sites' table, the visits total should be discounted
on 'Grouped' records, and thought of as the "Minimum number of visits"
that came from that grouping instead. Note: Visits only occur on
PageType requests, that is, for any request whose URL is one of the
'page' types defined with the PageType option. Due to the limitation
of the HTTP protocol, log rotations and other factors, this number
should not be taken as absolutely accurate, rather, it should be
considered a pretty close "guess".