An access log is a text file which contains a thorough list of all the files accessed by your Internet site visitors. All of the files that were requested in one way or another will be included, so if you have a PHP script program and a visitor opens only the home page, for example, you might find numerous files inside the log. The reason is that there are things on the home page that are embedded - parts of other web pages, images, etc. All these files will be listed inside the access log, so you can get a detailed picture of the way your Internet site functions. The info is in plain text format, so the logs are occasionally called "raw data" too. An access log contains the name of each and every requested file, the path to it, the date it was accessed, plus the user’s IP address, browser and Operating System. Additional information, like the referrer site, is sometimes included as well. A log file may be processed by various desktop apps for statistical purposes as an addition to the web stats created by your website hosting server.