It indicates the hostname, or RFC name, of the visitor or an IP number if domain name server lookup is not enabled for that visitor. The next important field is the datestamp, which is useful when running the log figures through analysis software. The datestamp information can be used to graph peak activity throughout the day, week and month. This will show you whether traffic picked up after your banner ad started appearing. The retrieval method is posted.
Most visitors retrieve multiple files which make up a single Web page.
Some counters would indicate three hits to the Web site. Others would indicate a single HTML page hit. If a banner ad also appeared on the page and was retrieved with the other three files, an appropriate counting device would register an impression. The code field indicates whether a retrieval was successful. This indicates the size of the file retrieved.