Glossary of Terms

Glossary

Following are definitions for terms used in this report and throughout the World-Wide Web in general. These terms are also common to the WebTrends analysis tool.

Glossary
Ad Clicks	Action from a user clicking on an advertisement to get more information.
Ad Views	Display of an advertisement on the HTML page a user is viewing.
Authentication	Technique by which access to Internet or Intranet resources requires the user to identify himself or herself using a name and password.
Bandwidth	Measure (in kilobytes of data transferred) of the traffic on the site.
Browser	A program used to locate and view HTML documents (Netscape, Mosaic, Microsoft Explorer, for example.)
Click through rate	Percentage of users who click on a viewed advertisement. This is a good indication of the effectiveness of this ad.
Client	The browser (see above) used by a visitor to a Web site.
Client Errors	An error occurring due to an invalid request by the visitor's browser. Client errors are in the 400-range. See "Return Code" definition.
Company Database	The database installed and used by WebTrends to look up the company name, city, state and country corresponding to a specific domain name.
Domain Name	The text name corresponding to the numeric IP address of a computer on the Internet (i.e., www.webtrends.com).
Domain Name Lookup	The process of converting a numeric IP address into a text name (for example, 204.245.240.194 is converted to www.webternds.com).
Forms	An HTML page which passes variables back to the server. These pages are used to gather information from users.
FTP	File Transfer Protocol is a standard method of sending files between computers over the Internet.
GIF	Graphics Interchange Format is an image file format commonly used in HTML documents.
Hit	An action on the Web site, such as when a user views a page or downloads a file.
Home Page	The main page of a Web site. The home page provides visitors with an overview and links to the rest of the site. It often contains or links to a Table of contents for the site.
Home Page URL	The local path or Internet URL to the default page of the Web site for which WebTrends reports will be generated.
HTML	Hyper Text Markup Language is used to write documents for the World Wide Web 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.
IP Address	Internet Protocol address identifying a computer connected to the Internet.
JPEG	Joint Photographic Expert Group is a method of storing an image in digital format.
Page Impressions	Hit to HTML pages only (access to non-HTML documents are not counted).
Platform	The operating system (i.e. Windows 95, Windows NT, etc.) used by a visitor to your Web site.
Protocol	An established method of exchanging data over the Internet.
Referrer	URL of an HTML page that refers to your Web site.
Return Code	The return status of the request which specifies whether the transfer was successful and why. Possible "Success" codes are: 200 = Success: OK 201 = Success: Created 202 = Success: Accepted 203 = Success: Partial Information 204 = Success: No Response 300 = Success: Redirected 301 = Success: Moved 302 = Success: Found 303 = Success: New Method 304 = Success: Not Modified Possible "Failed" codes are: 400 = Failed: Bad Request 401 = Failed: Unauthorized 402 = Failed: Payment Required 403 = Failed: Forbidden 404 = Failed: Not Found 500 = Failed: Internal Error 501 = Failed: Not Implemented 502 = Failed: Overloaded Temporarily 503 = Failed: Gateway Timeout
Scripts	An HTML page which passes variables back to the server.
Search Engines	A databased website containing information which can be used to find sites of interest.
Server (Web)	A computer that hosts information available to anyone accessing the Internet. Activity on a Web server is recorder in a log file.
Server Errors	An error occurring at the server. Server errors are in the 500-range. See "Return Code" definition.
Site (Web)	A location on the Internet containing HTML documents that visitors can view using a browser.
Spiders	An automated program which searches the internet.
Suffix (Domain Name)	The three digit suffix of a domain can be used to identify the type of organization. Possible "Suffixes" are: .com = Commercial .edu = Educational .int = International .gov = Government .mil = Military .net = Network .org = Organization
URL	Universal Resource Locator is a means of identifying an exact location on the Internet. For example, http://www.webtrends.com/html/info/default.htm is the URL which defines the use of HTTP to access the Web page Default.htm in the /html/info/ directory on the WebTrends Corporation Web site). As the previous example shows, a URL is comprised of four parts: Protocol Type (HTTP), Machine Name (webtrends.com), Directory Path (/html/info/), and File Name (default.htm).
User Address	The domain name or IP address for the remote user.
User Agent	The fields in an extended Web server log file indicating the browser and the platform used by a visitor.
User Session	A session of activity (all hits) for one visitor to a Web site. A unique user is determined by the IP address or domain name. By default, a user session is terminated when a user falls inactive for more than 30 minutes.
World Wide Web (WWW, the Web, W3)	The Web is a hypertext-based, distributed system developed to provide Internet users an easy, intuitive means of accessing information.