An access log is a comprehensive list of all the files which were accessed by the visitors of a certain website. Every file that was requested in some way shall be listed, so if you have only one webpage with 3 embedded images, one video and one embedded text file, as an illustration, the access log shall contain a total of 6 entries - one for each of the 6 files which were accessed when the visitor opened the page. A log usually offers the file name and path, the date, in addition to the visitor’s Operating System, browser and IP address. In some cases you may also find the referrer sites that sent the visitors to your site. The information which an access log file provides is in human-readable plain text format. It could be processed by special software on a PC and used to write reports on the overall performance of a website, independent of the web statistics which your hosting server may have created.
