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Web access statistics

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A simple overview of the access load can be seen by examining the number of accesses to the home page per day. These are shown in the tables below. The monthly links give a more detailed overview of who has been looking at the pages, and which are most popular. The numbers after the name of the month are the number of requests for the home page. This doesn't give much useful information and the graphs at the bottom of this page give a better idea of trends. So these numbers are no longer listed.

1995

  
  
  
April240
May304
June404
July434
August432
September456
October518
November415
December461

1996

January539
February568
March620
April613
May585
June558
July525
August582
September596
October564
November662
December723

1997

January962
February875
March983
April976
May965
June983
July936

1998

  
  
  

 

1999

January1837
February1880
March1982
April1943
May2064
June2185
July2000
August2031
September2117
October2225
November2221
December1691
     

2000

January3415
February2788
March3036
April2874
May2538
June2537
July2432
August2413
September2527
October2842
November2735
December2060

2001

January3079
February3320
March3082
April3044
May2532
June2456
July2568
August2693
September2468
October2681
November2679
December2234

2002

January4360
February3870
March3448
April3169
May2976
June2699
July2740
August2833
September2998
October2691
November3113
December2559

2003

January3377
February3611
March3317
April3028
May3076
June2913
July2929
August2828
September2862
October3117
November2998
December2428

2004

January3652
February3837
March3523
April3094
May2763
June2645
July2754
August 
September 
October 
November3530
December2715
 

2005

January3819
February3832
March3630
April3142
May3209
June3047
July2786
August2882
September2811
October3146
November3155
December2427

2006

January4234
February4785
March4069
April3591
May3300
June2792
July2725
August2876
September3272
October3610
November3427
December2617

2007

January3240
February3604
March3398
April2989
May2970
June2838
July2867
August2684
September2852
October3369
November3060
December2527

2008

January3386
February3982
March4023
April3871
May3180
June3140
July2996
August3089
September3099
October3047
November2818
December1992

2009

January3015
February3199
March2909
April2437
May2232
June2117
July2272
August 
September 
October 
November 
December2025
 

2010

January2929
February12811
March2943
April2562
May2373
June2437
July2419
August2841
September2623
October2304
November2726
December1886

2011

January2154
February2581
March 
April 
May 
June 
July1980
August2118
September2233
October2161
November 
December 

2012

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2013

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July2176
August2212
September2055
October1976
November 
December 

2014

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 
     

2015

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2016

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2017

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2018

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2019

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 
     

2020

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2021

January 
February 
March 
April 
May 
June 
July 
August 
September 
October 
November 
December 

2022

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

2023

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 
     
     

 

Today 

Data transfer rate

The graph of total data transfer rate from our main site, shows an overall picture of usage. Figures for some months in the early years of the service have unfortunately been lost.

Size graph

The peak in Aug 2015 seems to have been problems with Drupal conversion on 14 Aug.

Server requests

The server requests graph shown the average number of successful requests per day. It does not include redirects or failures such as 404s. Requests include pages of html, images, css files, javascript etc.

Requests graph

The peak in April 2020 was when we transferred to Drupal 8 when there was significantly more robot activity and for a time we were not using consolidated css and javascript files.

Notes

These statistics are based on the web server access logs produced on our main server. Until our move to Drupal in 2015 most of the service was provided by a computer at Manchester University whilst a few counties were hosted elsewhere. So there was an increase in accesses due to the fact that everything was then all based at the same site. The migration into drupal did take some time to achieve and did not take place all at once.

The format of the data used to produce the statistics has also changed over time as has the analysis software used to produce the reports and at times this did not happen. They do though give an idea of trends as time has passed.

Since 1999 we have used the Apache web server and used a program called Analog to analyse the logs. Both have changed over the years and we have also had different ideas of what reports to produce. All are based on the data format of the Apache logs which contain:

  • The IP address of the browser requesting the page
  • The url of that page
  • The status code e.g. 200, 301, 404 etc.
  • The size of the page sent to the user
  • Information provided by the browser which can include
    • The url of the page containing the link to this one to this one.
    • The name of the browser or the robot fetching the page
    • The operating system it is running on

All these items apart from the last one seem to hold reliable data. Over time though the last one has changed according to the browser/robot used to fetch the page. Nowadays it seems to contain more than one browser as robots try and make it hard for servers to block them. It also seems to be a trend that the browsers mention all the operating systems on which they can run. So analysis and reports based on this data field can now only show overall trends depending on how complicated the Analog configuration are. The reports based on the the main data items though can give an accurate view of what is going on and the two graphs above are based upon those figures.

There are peaks and troughs in the graphs of course, some where we have made changes with unexpected consequences. In the earlier years there tended be be less activity in December with a big increase in January slowing down to a trough for the summer holidays.

Robots

It is not just real people sat with a web browser fetching our pages as there are also many robots fetching them as well. These consist of search engines fetching copies of our pages to use to build their indexes, and also software checking links to us in their web sites.The search engines tend to put a much heavier load on us than other robots, but it is simpler to just call both types a robot. It is very useful in any analysis of access data to be able to separate the real users from the robots as whilst we want users to find us in the search engines, we need to try and manage robot access so that it does not add such a load to the system that users experience poor performance. This was one of the factors in periods of poor performance after the move to Drupal 8 in April 2020.

Now the only way we have to help determine that an access is from a robot is that last unreliable field in the Apache logs. For many years we didn't try much to identify the robots so the statistics tend to have them just amongst the user data. The names of the robots have also changed over time and more keep appearing. The robot activity appears in The Operating system report under Known robots. There will be some further activity under the other operating systems for those with nothing to identify them in the log files.

Analog

We have some documentation about configuring Analog.