Using AWFFull: Pages - Hits Percentage

You've possibly seen it (Hits%) on the Daily Report and wondered what it was good for and why did Steve bother putting it in?

Very simply, it's a quick and dirty proxy for how much normal traffic (real people) vs spiders and/or bot's hit your site. The assumption being that you do use image, style sheets and other paraphernalia. If you don't, then this won't work for you. Sorry.

Rephrasing the underlying math: What percentage of Hits was Pages?

• If Pages equals Hits, then the percentage will be 100%. You've only had spiders visiting your site.

• The percentage should never equal 0%. If it does, you only had hits and no pages. Which is counter-intuitive.

Using the linked demo, notice two days in particular: the 3rd of August 2006 and the 10th.

Both had very similar page views (1400 & 1600 respectively). But you can clearly see from the graph, that they had massively different "Hits". Without even trying to drill down further it's pretty obvious that a large chunk of the traffic on the 10th was due to bots.

If you check the Hits% for both days, you'll also see the same things. On the 3rd it was 23.31%. Compared with 63.95% on the 10th. 63 is closer to 100 than 23, ergo, we were more heavily spidered, proportionately, on the 10th.

So what?

Ok, I accept the example given was contrived. The report is a lot more useful when the graphical difference is more subtle. I tend to use it to act as a quick check against going off on wild goose chases. "Wow! We had a lot of traffic yesterday! Where did it all come from? Why???" being the usual questions.

A quick glance at this column can show that, yes, lots of traffic, mostly spiders. Or "Cool! Dunno why, yet, but I'll find out shortly! Looks to be real people too!" and then slice and dice on that single day or even shorter periods.

The difference may be small. At work, the difference between heavy spidering and lots of users is a change of just 5 percents (ie from 50 to 55 style of thing. I'm sure there's a better way of phrasing that...).

In and of itself, this column isn't a magical reveal all the secrets spell. As you track it over time, you'll get a feel for your site. What's normal. And what isn't. And consequently better appreciate how real users really use the site. And hence, how you can make the site even better and achieve your goals for it.

Enjoy!