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Web Analytics Glossary F to P

FTP - (File Transfer Protocol) The basic method for copying a file from one computer to another through the Internet.

File Type - A File Type is a designation, usually in the form of an extension (such as .gif or .jpeg), given to a file to describe its function or the software that is required to act upon it. More generally, file types can be grouped into image file types (such as .gif, .png, .jpeg), text file types (such as .doc or .txt), and many others.

Filter - A filter is a text string or regular expression that is used to either exclude certain hits or only include certain hits from a web analytics tool. Filters are commonly used to filter out certain content, such as internal company traffic or JavaScript libraries, or to set up special reports for only certain types of content, like a subsection of a web site.

Firewall - A security device placed on a LAN (local area network) to protect it from Internet intruders. This can be a special kind of hardware router, a piece of software, or both.

First Time Sessions - The number of times unique visitors came to your website during a specified time period, not having visited before that period. These visitors are identified by cookies.

First Time Unique Visitor - The number of Unique Visitors to your website that had not visited prior to the time frame being analyzed.

First Time Visitors - The number of visitors who come to your site for the first time. A first time visitor is determined by the absence of a cookie.

Form - In the context of the web, a form is a data-entry mechanism generally created out of HTML in conjunction with a CGI script. A form is usually a static HTML page that presents the visitor with blanks, or fields. Upon entering data into the fields, the form is submitted and a script of some sort performs some type of action on the data, such as writing it to a file.

Frame - A rectangular region within the browser window that displays a web page alongside other pages in other frames.

GET Method - The GET method is a way of passing parameters of an HTTP request from the browser to the server. This method puts the parameters, usually separated by special characters such as ampersands ("&"), in the URL itself, which is viewable to the person using the browser. The other method is POST, which is used when the site does not want to pass the parameters in the URL. This is desirable when there is a large quantity of text to send to the server or the information is sensitive.

GIF - A graphics file type -- Graphics Interchange Format -- a compressed, bitmapped format often used on the web because of its good quality/compression ratio when used on certain image types, particularly those with large flat areas of color.

Graphic User Interface - (GUI) Pronounced "gooey". A method of controlling software using on-screen icons, menus, dialog boxes, and objects that can be moved or resized, usually with a pointing device such as a mouse.

Hits - Hits represent the counting of every file that is loaded on the page, every graphic and every style sheet in addition to the page view which is the actual html, asp, jsp, or cfm page in this case. The net result is that the number of hits will always be significantly higher than the number of page views. For example, a site could averages 15 million hits per month. However, this could translate into only on average 2 million page views per month or more simply, if you have 50 small images on your home page and one visitor views that page, you will get 51 hits. If you do not have any images, you will get one hit.

HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language is used to write documents for the World Wide Web and to specify hypertext links between related objects and documents.

HTTP - Hyper Text Transfer Protocol is a standard method of transferring data between a web server and a web browser.

Hardware - A computer and the associated physical equipment directly involved in the performance of data-processing or communication functions.

IIS - Microsoft Internet Information Server, or IIS as it's commonly called, is a popular web server software system for Windows operating systems. It is currently unavailable for other operating systems. For more information, see Microsoft.com.

IP Address - An identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number ranges from 0 to 255.

IP Address - A unique 32 bit Internet address consisting of 4 numbers separated by dots (periods). Every computer connected to the Internet is assigned an IP Address. Because people would find it very difficult to find and remember a Web site by its IP number, the Internet uses special computers known as Name Servers to assign ordinary names to IP Addresses.

ISP - Internet Service Provider. A company which provides other companies or individuals with access to, or presence on, the Internet. Most ISPs are also Internet Access Providers -- extra services include help with design, creation and administration of WWW sites, etc.

Impression - The single display of a given banner advertisement to an individual web user More

Interactive television (ITV) - Interactive Television is television with interactive content and enhancements. Interactive television provides richer entertainment and more information about what is showing. Literally it combines traditional TV watching with the interactivity of the Internet and personal computer.

Java - A C-derived, object-oriented programming language invented by Sun Microsystems. Java is designed to run on any type of computer hardware through an intermediary layer called a virtual machine, which translates Java instructions into native code for that particular computer.

JavaScript - Small element of code embedded on web pages and executed by the browser when the page is viewed by a visitor.

Keyword - A keyword is a database index entry that identifies a specific record or document. Keyword searching is the most common form of text search on the web. Most search engines do their text query and retrieval using keywords. Unless the author of the web document specifies the keywords for her document (this is possible by using meta tags), it's up to the search engine to determine them. Essentially, this means that search engines pull out and index words that are believed to be significant. Words that are mentioned towards the top of a document and words that are repeated several times throughout the document are more likely to be deemed important.

Languages - This report details the primary language used by your visitors' browsers. Every time a page is requested from your site, it specifies a preferred language for the page. Understanding what languages your visitors use will help you customize content and to develop alternate pages for visitors who read different languages

Leakage - A type of dropout from customer engagement in the customer-centric framework that happens before any serious engagement with potential customers takes place. It represents customers whom you were able to acquire, but whom you were not able to convert More

Local Area Network - (LAN) A more-or-less self-contained network of interconnected computers (that may connect to the Internet), usually in a single office or building.

Log File - A file created by a web or proxy server that contains all of the access information regarding the activity on that server.

Log Format - Every log file is written in a particular format,. The major access log types are NCSA Extended Combined, which is commonly used by Apache; and W3C, which is commonly used by Microsoft IIS.

Log Rotation - Log Rotation is the practice of renaming a log file, often by adding a date-stamp, and storing it somewhere. This is done concurrently with creating a new log file for the storage of website usage data. Most log rotation is done on a daily basis.

Log file - A file created by a web or proxy server which contains all of the access information regarding the activity on that server. Each line in a log file generated by web server software is a hit, or request for a file. Therefore, the number of lines in a log file will be equal to the number of hits in the file, not counting any field definitions line(s) that may be present.

Meta Tag - A special HTML tag that provides information about a web page. Unlike normal HTML tags, meta tags do not affect how the page is displayed. Instead, they provide information such as who created the page, how often it is updated, what the page is about, and which keywords represent the page's content. Many search engines use this information when building their indices.

Multihome - A multihome, or load balanced, network means distributing processing and communications activity evenly across a computer network so that no single device is overwhelmed. Load balancing is especially important for networks where it's difficult to predict the number of requests that will be issued to a server. Busy websites typically employ two or more web servers in a load balancing scheme. If one server starts to get swamped, requests are forwarded to another server with more capacity.

NCSA - NCSA stands for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The NCSA developed several important web protocols and software systems, including the standard logging type used by Apache -- NCSA Extended Combined.

Navigation - Describes the movement of a user through a website or other application interface. This term also indicates the system of available links and buttons that the user can use to navigate through the website.

Network - A set of computers connected so that they can communicate and share information. Most major networks are connected to the global network-of-networks, called the Internet.

No Referral - The "(no referral)" entry appears in various Referrals reports in the cases when the visitor to the site got there by typing the URL directly into the browser window or using a bookmark/favourite. In other words, the visitor did not click on a link to get to the site, so there was no referral, technically speaking.

OS - (Operating System) Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to employ it easily. (MacOS, Windows 95)

Online - A general term referring to anything connected to or conveyed through a communication network.

Organization - The classification to which a Domain Name belongs. Typical Suffixes are: .com = Commercial, .org = Organization, .edu = Educational, .int = International, .gov = Government, .mil = Military, .net = Network

Opt-in/opt-out - Opt-In is the action a person takes when he or she actively agrees, by email or other means, to receive communications. It requires tactics and mechanisms to encourage and allow people to become recipients. Opt-Out is the action a person takes when he or she chooses not to receive communications. It requires tactics and mechanisms by which people can ask to be removed reliably from an email list.

PDF - Portable Document Format. File format developed by Adobe Systems to allow for display and printing of formatted documents across platforms and systems. PDF files can be read on any system equipped with the Acrobat Reader software, regardless of whether or not your computer has the software that the document was created in.

PMML (Predictive Modeling Markup Language) - An effort by the Data Mining Group (DMG) to make predictive models interchangeable. PMML is based on XML. It supports a number of different statistical predictive model types.

Page - Also known as a web page, a page is defined as a single file delivered by a web server that contains HTML or similar content. Any file that is not specifically a GIF, JPEG, PING, JS (JavaScript), or CSS (style sheet) is considered a page.

Page View - The opportunity for a page to appear in a browser window as a direct result of a visitor's interaction with a website. The term "page" is used to represent the visitor's view of a website through the browser window. A page request does not guarantee that a visitor actually viewed the requested page. It only measures the opportunity for that page to have been delivered to the visitor. A page request will be valid even if the resource or information requested does not load to completion or otherwise become fully available to the requesting visitor. Pages may contain text, images, media objects or other online elements. However, only one page is counted per request. A request that is followed by an interstitial page (a page that appears in a separate browser window while a web page is loading), will only count as one page request. Cached pages (pages held in processor memory) are not counted in page-hit calculations, so as to have a system of measurement that replicates web log file data.

Path - A Path is defined as a series of clicks resulting in distinct page views. A Path cannot contain non-pages, such as image files. Each step in a path will have a name, such as "index.html".

Platform - A platform is a specific computer hardware and software operating system combination that represents a specific user's configuration and method of accessing the Internet. Common platforms include Windows NT/x86 (Microsoft Windows NT on a standard Intel-type PC), Mac PPC (Macintosh with Power PC processor), Red Hat Linux 6.1 x86 (Linux on a standard Intel-type PC).

Point-in-time services - Point-in-time services occur when customers are directed to your website to perform a well-defined task at a specific, often event-driven, time. Examples include payment for utility bills, product registrations, technical support, and customer satisfaction surveys

Port - A port is a distinct location on the web server at which point two-way communications can take place. Every type of network communication uses a specific port, including http, ftp, email, etc. Ports allow multiple protocols of communication to exist simultaneously on the same computer. The standard port for web traffic is 80, while the secure (encrypted) port is usually 443.

Post - There are two methods to send HTML form data to a server. GET, the default, will send the form input in an URL, whereas POST sends it in the body of the submission. The latter method means you can send larger amounts of data, and that the URL of the form results doesn't show the encoded form.

Protocol - An established method of exchanging data over the Internet.

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Web Analytics Glossary A to E
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