How to view website statistics with AWStats on HostGator
AWStats is a web analytics tool commonly included with HostGator cPanel hosting. It reads your server’s access logs and turns them into reports covering visits, page views, popular URLs, referral sources, bandwidth and crawler activity. For a new site owner, that gives you a practical way to learn which pages attract attention and whether visitors are finding the information they came for.
You normally reach the reports through the HostGator customer area: open the web hosting account, launch cPanel, and select AWStats under the Metrics section. A HostGator plan may also include cPanel Analytics, which offers a simpler overview for quick checks. AWStats is the better choice when you need detailed traffic records, historical comparisons and a closer look at files, searches and server requests.
Australian timing and geography deserve attention while reading the numbers. Sydney and Melbourne move between Australian Eastern Standard Time and Australian Eastern Daylight Time, while Brisbane remains on Australian Eastern Standard Time. Traffic patterns for customers in each city can therefore differ from the server’s timestamp. Choosing the right domain, checking the report time zone and keeping dates consistent will make later comparisons much more reliable.
| Need | AWStats | cPanel Analytics |
|---|---|---|
| Data source | HostGator server access logs | Traffic recorded through cPanel |
| Best suited to | Detailed historical reviews and technical analysis | Quick checks and simple traffic overviews |
| Typical detail | Visitors, URLs, searches, referrers, files, bandwidth and robots | Recent visits, page views, referrers and straightforward graphs |
| Main limitation | Depends on log processing and scheduled updates; bot activity may be included | Offers less technical detail and a shorter historical context; features vary by plan |
Sign in to the HostGator customer area
Start in the HostGator customer portal, sign in, and open the web hosting account that contains your website. Select the domain or hosting package, then use the cPanel or Launch cPanel button provided for that account. If several websites sit under one customer login, choose the account first so the AWStats domain list shows only the relevant sites. This avoids accidentally reviewing a parked domain or an old development site.
Once cPanel opens, find Metrics and choose AWStats. Some cPanel layouts place AWStats directly in the main search results, while others show it beneath Metrics or Web Statistics. If it does not appear, check whether the feature is enabled for the plan, clear your browser cache, or ask HostGator support through the customer area. The knowledge base and tutorial library can also help when a button has moved after a control panel update.
Keep account access secure while you explore the interface. Use the HostGator password reset route if needed, avoid sharing cPanel credentials, and sign out on shared devices. Website owners who maintain sites for clients can carry the same routine into a documented handover process; the carry course provides one example of that broader planning discipline. AWStats itself remains the source for this account’s traffic data.
Select the domain and reporting period
AWStats usually opens with a drop-down list of the domains and subdomains assigned to your cPanel account. Pick the hostname people actually visit, such as your primary .com.au domain, rather than a parked name or unrelated add-on. If both example.com.au and www.example.com.au appear, test one briefly and compare its figures with the other, because redirects and separate log records can make them look like different sites.
Choose a date range that matches the question. The daily view helps with campaign launches or support issues, while monthly and yearly views reveal whether traffic is growing. Compare equivalent periods, such as the last 30 days against the 30 days before it, rather than a busy week with a quiet month. A range of one to seven days is useful for a first check, but it is too small a sample to judge a new Australian business reliably.
Also check the time-zone setting and the report’s last-update time. AWStats may use the hosting server’s time zone, while cPanel Analytics can display dates differently. Daylight saving changes the relationship between Australian server time and the clock in Sydney or Melbourne, so note any offset before comparing hourly peaks. If today’s figures are empty or incomplete, the scheduled statistics update may simply have not processed the newest log entries yet.
Read the traffic summary accurately
Begin with Unique Visitors, Visits and Hits, but treat them as different measures. A unique visitor is an approximate person or device, often derived from an IP address and browser details. A visit groups requests into a journey, while a hit records each request, including images, stylesheets and scripts. A page with few visits can still generate many hits when its media files are heavy, so high hits do not automatically mean stronger visitor interest.
Then explore the monthly and daily sections for the busiest days, popular hours, entry pages, exit pages, most requested URLs and pages that receive little attention. For a business serving Australian customers, a Sydney campaign may produce a different pattern from Melbourne activity or regional demand around Brisbane. Treat geography as a clue rather than a precise address: IP-based location often identifies a city or region, not the visitor’s exact location or local time.
Review bandwidth, file types, search terms and crawler activity as a technical layer beneath the visitor figures. Bots can inflate hits, keyword totals and bandwidth without producing customer journeys. A linked destination such as EVan Deveraux’s project homepage should be assessed for navigation and goal completion in the same way as any other page, but the traffic figures still need to come from your own AWStats report. Separate human visits from automated requests before acting on the figures.
Compare campaigns, searches and locations
The Referrers and Search Engine sections show how people arrive at your website. Direct traffic may mean a remembered address, a bookmark or a link shared in a message that the report cannot identify. External referrals can expose useful partnerships, while some apparent traffic may be spam or automated scraping. Group each campaign around a dated activity, such as a newsletter, social post or Google Ads change, and compare the traffic it produces with the period before it.
AWStats does not provide a complete sales funnel by itself. It can show a visit to a contact or booking page, but it cannot confirm a completed sale unless your form, booking system or e-commerce platform records that outcome. Keep those business records beside the hosting report. Your Australian HostGator invoice may also show hosting charges in Australian dollars with GST, so renewal timing and service periods are worth separating from changes in website demand.
A campaign landing page such as the crypto casino welcome bonus illustrates why one headline, offer or call to action should be compared with another. Use the same date range, traffic source and device mix for each page. AWStats can analyse traffic for domains configured in your HostGator account; it does not reveal another website’s private visitor statistics, so use an outside page only as a design and measurement reference.
Privacy and consent still apply to the campaigns you measure. AWStats may display IP addresses and browser details without names, but those records can still be sensitive. Follow Australian privacy obligations and your own consent policy, limit exports, and avoid adding names, phone numbers or other personal details to reports unnecessarily. Also keep email campaigns compliant with Australia’s Spam Act, which covers commercial email consent and identification.
Establish a reliable monthly review
If AWStats is missing, blank or frozen, confirm that you selected the correct hosting account and hostname. Ask HostGator support to check log collection, the AWStats configuration and the scheduled update if basic checks do not resolve it. A cache-cleared browser can fix a stale interface, while a server or network issue may require a ticket. AWStats describes requests; it does not prove that the website remained online throughout the selected period.
Create a repeatable review with a few fixed measures: unique visitors, visits, page views, popular landing pages, referrers, bandwidth and abnormal status codes. Compare each month with the previous one and the same period a year earlier when enough history exists. Add short notes beside campaigns, outages and major website changes. This makes an unusual spike easier to explain than a raw monthly total on its own.
Finally, connect the report to a goal such as enquiries, bookings or sales, then choose one page that should produce that action and check whether it receives qualified visits. New websites may need several weeks of data before patterns become meaningful, but a small first record still provides a baseline. Open AWStats in cPanel, select your primary Australian domain, and record its unique visitors, visits and page views for the previous seven days as your first baseline.