Knowing the who, what, where and how about your visitors is very useful to get an idea of ​​its user base. More specifically:

Who – By using the IP address of someone you can tell when a surfer is geographically located.
What – What pages looked the surfer on your website?
Where – The Surfer referred from another place, the search engine? They have their place marked?
How – How long did the surfer on your site?

All this information and more can be provided to you without worrying about your visitors, that is, not the cookies should be placed on the visitor’s computer to collect this data. With a decent statistics program you will be able to find out how many people have marked their place, as long as the average visit is, what are the most popular pages on the site.

Stastistic Terminology

Not much use a detailed traffic analysis if the above conditions are not understood by the reader. Below is a glossary of vocabulary to make your web statistics web analytics reports more informative:

Unique / Unique visitors – The number of unique visitors we had for the time period specified. Example: If there was only one person who visits your website, and visited 1,000 times a day separate, unique visits would be only one. The uniqueness is dependent on the visitor’s IP address.
Visits – The total visits, ignoring singularity, that a website receives in a given period. Using the same example above, the total would be 1,000 visits per day.
Page Views – Each time a web page is loaded is known as a page view.
Hits – Each application server is counted as a success, so if you have a web page with 15 images, then there will be multiple (+15) visits per page viewed.
Address and Scores – This amount relates to people who came to your website through your bookmarks or typed the URL manually.
Referent and referring URL – The web address where the visitor followed a link to reach your website. This is a great way to find websites that have linked to your website!

Popular Statistics Programs

There are many reliable statistics programs available, ranging from the most basic to a complete suite of business oriented. Below is a list of popular statistical programs that meet various needs.

Webalizer – is one of the most basic statistical programs available, however, is fully functional. Graphic and numerical data is displayed during periods monthly, daily and hourly. In addition, you can track your top referrers and popular search terms lead people instead.
AWStats – AWStats Webalizer improved by adding additional features, along with a more professional interface. Featres Added: tracking unique visitors, better monitoring of search engines, the duration of the visit, and more. AWStats is one of the best free statistics program.
Urchin – Urchin shows a full suite of web analytics for those who need detailed information about web site traffic and visitor behavior. This detailed information comes at a high price (about a license to the $ 1,000 mark) that makes this product aimed at businesses and individuals with a substantial budget.