[WEB4LIB] RE: Reporting Web usage: what numbers do you use?

[Edward Spodick]

At 4:57 PM -0700 25/10/2004, Lori Ayre wrote:
>I'm wondering if my assumption is correct.  *Do* most libraries only use one
>public IP address such that whether a staff person or 20 people on your
>various public access computers hit a site, it will all look like traffic
>from the same ip address? 

All of our PCs have static addresses.
BUT - all off-campus connections are routed through a caching transparent proxy server.

SO
1 - If the page being visited has not been updated, or the cached version has not expired (based on the proxy server's settings) you won't get a hit at all, even though out users will see the page. (caveat - unless you set all your pages to no cache, etc., which I would consider rude).

2 - When your page is visited, the connecting IP address will be reported as the one belonging to the proxy server (actually a pool of several servers, but you get the point).  Our campus proxy server does send the originating IP address as part of its connection - but that is content information, not the connecting IP address, and I do not know how common that is or if any stats programs will identify that information.


Statistics are useful, especially for comparison purposes, trends, etc.  But they are not "accurate". 

Life is relative.  :)

-- 
Edward F Spodick, Information Technology Manager
Hong Kong University of Science & Technology Library
lbspodic at ust.hk  tel:852-2358-6743 fax:852-2358-1043