cPanel's Metrics section records what actually reaches your server - every request, every error, every byte. That is a different and often more useful picture than a JavaScript analytics tool, which only sees visitors whose browsers run scripts. This guide explains each tool, which one to open for which question, and how to read the numbers without drawing the wrong conclusion.
Server statistics count every request, including bots, crawlers, feed readers and API calls. JavaScript analytics counts only real browsers that executed the tracking code. Server figures therefore look much higher, and neither is wrong - they answer different questions. Use server statistics to understand load, errors and crawlers; use analytics to understand people.
Which tool for which question
| Your question | Open |
|---|---|
| Why is my site throwing errors? | Errors |
| Who or what is hammering my site right now? | Visitors or Raw Access |
| How much traffic am I using? | Bandwidth |
| Which pages are most requested? | Awstats |
| Am I hitting a resource ceiling? | Resource Usage |
| Is anything wrong with my site overall? | Site Quality Monitoring |
Errors - open this one first
Metrics → Errors shows the most recent entries from your error log. When anything is broken, this is the fastest route to the cause, and the step most people skip.
- Read from the newest entries down.
- Lines containing
PHP Fatal errorname the exact file and line - which usually names the exact plugin or theme responsible. File does not existentries are usually missing images or a bot probing for files you do not have.Deprecatedwarnings are advance notice that a future PHP version will break something.
A steady stream of "File does not exist" for paths like /wp-login.php on a site that is not WordPress is routine automated scanning, not a problem.
Visitors and Raw Access
Metrics → Visitors shows the most recent requests in a readable table - IP address, time, URL requested, referring page and user agent. It is the right tool for "what is happening on my site at this moment".
Metrics → Raw Access downloads the complete Apache log as a compressed file. Use it when you need the full picture rather than the recent slice: investigating an incident, counting requests from one address, or feeding the log into another tool.
Together these let you identify an abusive source, which you can then block in Security → IP Blocker. Confirm what an address actually did in the log before blocking it.
Bandwidth
Metrics → Bandwidth breaks your transfer down by month, day and protocol - HTTP, FTP, and mail traffic separately.
Sudden bandwidth growth without matching visitor growth usually means one of: images being hotlinked by another site, a large file being shared widely, an aggressive crawler, or a compromised account sending mail. The protocol breakdown tells you which - a spike in mail bandwidth on a site that barely sends email deserves immediate investigation.
Awstats, Webalizer and Analog Stats
Three log analysers, all reading the same underlying data and presenting it differently.
| Tool | Best for |
|---|---|
| Awstats | The most detailed and the one to use by default. Top pages, entry and exit pages, referrers, search terms, browsers, countries, HTTP status codes and a robots breakdown. |
| Webalizer | Quick monthly graphs and long-term trends at a glance. |
| Analog Stats | A fast, minimal summary. Lightest of the three. |
Reading Awstats without being misled
- Hits are individual files, not visits. One page with 40 images, scripts and stylesheets is 41 hits. Hits are the least meaningful number on the page.
- Pages counts actual page requests. Much closer to what you mean by traffic.
- Visits groups requests from one visitor within a time window.
- Unique visitors is approximated by IP address, so an office sharing one connection counts once, and a phone moving between wifi and mobile data counts twice.
- Check the Robots/Spiders visitors section before celebrating a traffic increase. It is often crawlers.
- The HTTP Status codes section is quietly one of the most useful - a rising 404 count means broken links somewhere.
Resource Usage and Site Quality Monitoring
Metrics → Resource Usage shows whether your account has hit its CPU, memory, entry process or I/O ceilings. A dedicated knowledgebase article covers reading it in detail.
Site Quality Monitoring checks your site for common problems and notifies you as they occur, without requiring any change to the site itself. Enable it from the prompt on the cPanel home screen or from the Metrics section.
Metrics Editor
Metrics → Metrics Editor controls which analysers run for which domains. If a domain shows no statistics at all, check here that logging is enabled for it. Disabling analysers you never look at saves a small amount of processing.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| No statistics for a domain | Logging is disabled for it in Metrics Editor, or the domain was added recently and no batch has run yet. |
| Server figures far exceed my analytics | Expected. Server logs include bots and asset requests; analytics does not. Compare Awstats Pages rather than Hits. |
| Traffic spike from one address | Check the user agent in Visitors. A legitimate search crawler should be left alone; an unidentified scraper can go in IP Blocker. |
| Bandwidth climbing with flat visitor numbers | Hotlinked images, a large downloadable file, or mail being sent from a compromised account. Check the protocol breakdown. |
| Error log is enormous | One repeating fatal error, usually a single plugin firing on every request. Fix it - it is consuming resources on every page load. |
| Lots of 404s in Awstats | Broken internal links or missing images. The status code section lists the requested paths so you can fix them. |
| Raw log too big to open | Do not open it in a text editor. Filter it: grep " 500 " access.log | tail -50 |
Frequently asked questions
Which number should I quote as "my traffic"?
Awstats Pages or Visits, not Hits. Hits are inflated by every image and script on the page.
How long is log data kept?
Raw logs are rotated regularly to control disk usage. Download anything you need to keep, and enable log archiving in Raw Access if you want copies retained on the account.
Do these statistics count against my bandwidth?
The tools themselves are negligible. Stored raw logs do count against your disk usage, which is why they are rotated.
Can I stop bots appearing in my statistics?
Not from the statistics themselves - the logs record what happened. Awstats separates robot traffic into its own section, which is the practical answer. A robots.txt file will reduce well-behaved crawler traffic.
Is this a replacement for a proper analytics tool?
No, and it is not meant to be. Server statistics tell you about load, errors and crawlers. Analytics tells you about people - where they came from, what they did, whether they converted. Most sites want both.
Why do the tools disagree with each other?
They apply different definitions of a visit and different robot filters to the same log. Pick one and track the trend rather than comparing absolute numbers between them.
