[thelist] Basic Traffic tracking question

[Green, Janet]

Basic traffic question - our tracking software, Webtrends, shows that a
particular "number" such as 234.344.44.22, visited our site at a certain day
and time. First question, is this an IP address, a DNS entry, or what?
Second, what does it represent and how is it valuable? I'm a page designer
with a limited understanding of this side of things, and my CEO is asking me
why these numbers show up in our traffic reports and why we should care
about them. My understanding is that they tell us *something* about who our
user is (or perhaps, where they are coming from?)... but I don't know
exactly what they represent so I cannot explain it to him. The next question
will be, can Webtrends display these numbers as something more useful than a
number (such as an ISP, for example, which might lead us to the user's
geographic location) - or are we stuck with numbers? I've stalled him for
now by saying that I would go and research Webtrends to see if I can better
answer his questions, although I am not the person who reviewed or installed
it, or who runs the reports. I bought some time... can someone just give me
a basic understanding of what that number is and what it represents?