Session variables (was: [thelist] Pop-up when user leaves site.)

Paola Kathuria paola at limitless.co.uk
Mon May 21 18:10:11 CDT 2001


Scott Dexter wrote:
> Statistics programs typically employ algorithms that consider how recently
> pages were viewed by individual ip addresses to come up with a "44 people
> are visiting" number.

Which stats programs are you referring to?

If you mean log analysers (to say how many people visited rather
than are visiting), I know that WebTrends, for instance, has no such
cleverness.  It defines a visit as an access from an IP address within
30 mins from the last access, by default
(see http://www.webtrends.com/support/hits_views_sessions.htm).

So WebTrends would say these (shortened) log lies of a single visit
describes 10 visits (each using MSIE 5.0 on Windows NT).

anchovy.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net    14:35   colour.html     -       Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
mozzarella.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net 14:36   216.html        /colour.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
ham.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net        14:36   33ccff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
anchovy.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net    14:37   3399ff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
fides.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net      14:37   33ffff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
pineapple.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net  14:37   66ffff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
green.uni.ac.uk        14:37   66ccff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
basil.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net      14:37   6699ff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
tomato.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net     14:37   0099ff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
anchovy.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net    14:38   ffccff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
mozzarella.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net 14:38   ffcc33.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
anchovy.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net    14:38   6600ff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
green.uni.ac.uk        14:38   ccffcc.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
mozzarella.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net 14:38   ccff66.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
tomato.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net     14:38   ccffff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
jalapeno.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net   14:38   ffffff.html /216.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)
oregano.ulcc.wwwcache.ja.net    14:39   216bg.html      /colour.html Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows NT; DigExt)

Server-side sessions would see this properly as one visit.

> A robots.txt file should be used for these cases, and rfc compliant robots
> will listen to it; hence no need to maintain a db.

Many, if not most, robots ignore robots.txt - that's because much
of the robot activity is initiated by individuals to collect e-mail
addresses from web pages (such as EmailSiphon), copy whole sites, to
copy images, pdfs, to search for specific content (such as sexsearcher)
or as offline browsers.  And many of those don't honour robots.txt

In any case, how is robots.txt relevant when being able to say how
many visitors one'e having or had?


Paola




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