| |
|
 |
| | Hits
vs Visits
Tip of the Month
Table of Contents
-- Question of the month: Are Hits the same as Visits?
-- Definition of Hits and Visits
-- Sample report from Urchin
-- Buyer beware - be sure to ask: visits or hits?
Question of the month: Are Hits the same as Visits?
In your website traffic log file data you may see a number
for "hits". Many people, including Web masters and advertisers,
think or claim that a hit is a visit or visitor.
The number of hits is not the same as the number of visits
and is usually many times larger.
Webalizer is a popular log program. Here is a real report:
Total Hits: 3,357
Total Files: 1,441
Total Pages: 413
Total Visits: 337
You can see that the number of hits reported is about
10 times the number of visits.
Definition of Hits and Visits
Here are the official definitions from the Webalizer website:
Hits represent the total number of requests made
to the server during the given time period (month, day,
hour etc..).
Files represent the total number of hits (requests)
that actually resulted in something being sent back to
the user. This includes all of the individual items that
make it up a page (such as graphics and audio clips).
Not all hits will send data, such as 404-Not Found requests
and requests for pages that are already in the browsers
cache.
Tip: By looking at the difference between hits
and files, you can get a rough indication of repeat visitors,
as the greater the difference between the two, the more
people are requesting pages they already have cached (have
viewed already).
Pages are those URLs that would be considered the
actual page being requested, and not all of the individual
items that make it up (such as graphics and audio clips).
Some people call this metric page views or page impressions,
and defaults to any URL that has an extension of .htm,
.html or .cgi.
Visits occur when some remote site makes a request
for a page on your server for the first time. As long
as the same site keeps making requests within a given
timeout period, they will all be considered part of the
same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server,
and the length of time since the last request is greater
than the specified timeout period, a new Visit is started
and counted, and the sequence repeats.
Webalizer
definitions
Sample report from Urchin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is a sample report from Urchin, another popular reporting
tool.
Total Visitors 3,647
Total Pageviews 10,818
Total Hits 44,510
Total Bytes Transferred 181.9MB
Again the number of hits is over 10 times as large as
the number of visitors.
Urchin
sample report
Buyer beware - be sure to ask: visits or hits?
So, if you are shopping for Web services or paying for
a link on a Web site, be sure to ask them if the number
they are using for visitors is really visitors or is it
"hits".
Learn more every month! Sign
up for my free newsletter!
Back
to Tip of the Month
BACK TO TOP |
|
|
|
|
866-380-4972
