About Filters

Use filters to specify the data to be analyzed. There are two ways to filter:

Hit filters apply to actions on a web site, such as when a user views a page or downloads a file.
Visit filters apply to activity during a visitor session.

Once you decide whether to filter by hit or visit, you the specify whether to include or exclude the filtered information. You can use multiple filters of the same type (for example, all Include filters) or combine different types in the same profile. For example, if you want to determine how much of your domestic web server activity comes from organizations other than the military, you would create an Include filter for all U.S. user addresses and an Exclude filter for all military user addresses. A couple of things to remember about combining filter types:

Combining multiple filters of the same type
When using multiple filters of the same type, if the information meets the criteria of any of the filters, it is included. For example, if you combine an Include filter definition of URL=\test.htm with an Include filter definition of returncode=304, you’ll include all hits that either have a URL of \test.htm or a return code of 304.
Combining multiple filters of different types
For any given activity, if both an Include filter and an Exclude filter match data in the log file, the Exclude filter prevails and the data is excluded.

Important: The order of the filters does not affect the way that they are processed.

When choosing whether to use an Include or Exclude filter, consider the best way to isolate the desired data. Suppose that you have a multi-homed log file and you want to store activity for only one of those domains. You would create an Include filter because you want to include only data for one domain. Now suppose that your multi-homed log contains activity for three of your domains and you want to store activity for only two of them. In this case, it's simplest to create an Exclude filter that excludes the third domain.

Finally you configure the following parameters to specify which information from the log file to include or exclude.

Hit Filters

Visit Filters

*Note: If you have not been granted full administrative rights in WebTrends Reporting Center, or if you are a WebTrends Reporting Service or Log Analyzer user, you may not be able to configure or use this feature. Please see your administrator if you have any questions.

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