Ever wonder what those website traffic numbers mean? This blog clears it up! We define key metrics: unique visitors (individual users), page views (each time a page is loaded) and hits (file requests like images). Learn how they differ and why they matter!
Published on July 4, 2009
First, the definitions…
- Unique Visitors – The number of individuals who have visited your website. But, if a person on a dial-up connection disconnects and reconnects, they will be assigned a different IP address and, therefore, be counted as another unique visitor if they return to your website.
- Visitor —The number of visitors to your website. But, again, if a person has dial-up, every time they disconnect and reconnect, they will be considered a new visitor.
- Page Views – The number of web pages your website serves. So, a single visitor may go back to your home page several times or refresh a page; each instance counts as another page view.
- Hits – The number of files your website serves. Every time your CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) loads, each image on your website loads, and each time your php or html files load, all these count as 1 hit. So, if a website has many of these items on its home page, a single page view of that home page may generate 40 hits. And if a website has very few items, a single view may only generate 20 hits.
Why Should You Care?
You should care because the method you choose to measure the success of your website is essential.
Which Statistic Should You Use?
Unique Visitors.
- Hits are no good because adding a few images could double it overnight.
- Page Views are useless because you could have pages that need frequent refreshing (F5 on your keyboard).
- Visitors are ok, but if one person comes back several times in one day because they keep getting interrupted, you only want to count them once.
- Unique Visitors is the best choice (and most web stats software reports that statistic accurately)
So, the next time someone says to you, “My website is so cool; I get 1000 hits a day,” you can say, “Whatever! I could put 100 tiny images on my pages and generate 1000 hits an hour! How many Unique Visitors do you get a day? That’s the only number that really matters!”
Discover How to Attract More Visitors
Understanding unique visitors is critical, but what about optimising your website to attract more of them? Found’s data-driven strategies can boost your website traffic and conversions.
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