The hit percentages by hour of day do not seem right. What gives?

Remember that all times are recorded Eastern Standard Time. We hope to make this configurable in our next version of WebTracker. For European or other international users, this is GMT -4 (during daylight savings time).

You say you track all these new browsers / OSs, but I don't see them?

To help keep your statistics concise, only browsers and operating systems that have received at least one hit are shown. Even after receiving a hit, it is possible that the particular OS or browser still be recorded as '0%', due to rounding.

I've never heard of 'Unix' or 'X11' - what is it?

Unix is an operating system designed for multiuser environments. For example, approximately 80% of all web servers are run on Unix, as is ours. X11 is the windowing system of Unix; it bears the same relationship to Unix as Windows 95 does to DOS. SunOS, IRIX, HP-UX, BSD, and Linux are all different versions of Unix.
The following companies all have a form of Unix software available:
• Sun Microsystems, the makers of Java?
  
• Hewlett Packard, also of desktop fame.
  
• Silicon Graphics, designers of high-powered graphics workstations.
  
• Berkeley Systems, a popular Unix for intel-based hardware.
  

  Additionally, freely available versions are present:
  

  • FreeBSD, a 'free' version of BSDI.
    
  • And finally, Linux, (which runs this site). No real home for Linux exists, but several sites are available, such as RedHat Software, S.u.S.e. Linux, or LinuxNOW which provides an excellent overview of Linux. A recent search at AltaVista for the word Linux returned 1003270 documents.

Why is the Lynx browser not tracked?

WebTracker will only function with graphical browsers. Since text-based browsers like Lynx do not load images, we have no way of tracking them. We doubt we will find a way to remedy this in the future.

Where does the 'hosts of unknown origin' count come from?

When a page loads and the WebTracker call to our server is made, the server does a quick lookup to try to determine the hostname from the IP address. If this hostname is not able to be determined immediately, the attempt is given up, and the 'host of unknown origin' count is incremented. Also note that sometimes it is impossible to return a hostname when given an IP address (not all IP addresses will have a hostname associated to them).

Generally, most sites will see such percentages in the 8% to 15% range. There is very little that can be done to improve this figure -- it is part of the nature of the internet.

How are return visitor percentages calculated?

Return visitor percentages are based upon page hits, and what percent of those hitsare from individuals that have been there one, twice or three times, four times to seven times, or eight times or more. For example, if the statistic showed 7% as two or three time visitors, this would be properly read as seven percent of all page loads came from individuals who visited the page two or three times.
To further complicate the matter, note that when a one-time visitor visits a page a second time, the one-time visitor count is decremented 1, and the two to three time visitor count is incremented 1.
Finally, due to the nature of cookies and the "hysteria" associated with them, many users decide to disable cookies with their browser. The return visitor information should only be used to get a basic idea of the ability of your site to get return visitors.

What happens if a visitor comes to my index page (with a WebTracker), leaves the page, then back-arrows to the index page again?

The visitor will not be recounted. The WebTracker logo will already be in the visitor's cache, hence it will not reload. WebTracker only counts visitors when the image loads.
This is the desired effect.

Is it possible to track e-mail addresses?

It is not possible to record the e-mail address of a visitor. Both Microsoft and Netscape (and FXWeb) consider this a breach of security, and write their browsers to not allow such a possibility.