Every time someone visits or hits your website, it is recorded in the server logs. Server logs come in raw data which your hosting company will convert and provide to you in reading form – website stats. By having your websites stats in front of you, you will be able to analyze where all of your traffic is coming from and how many hits and visitors you have had.
The word “hits” is commonly used these days and can cause confusion for many website owners, because in reality your traffic should not just be seen as hits, it should be split in to two groups, hits and visitors.
A visitor: This can be described as a unique person entering your website who then goes on to other pages and browses your site. No matter how many pages they look at, they will still only count as one visitor in your server logs. For example, if a person entered a website which sells golf supplies and they look at a certain brand of golf ball, they would then be counted as one visitor despite how many differing brands they may choose to then browse.
A hit: This however is different in the way that it counts every time a person moves to a different page on your website. Meaning every time a visitor moves to a different page on your website, it will create a hit in your server logs. For example, a hit in the same golf supplies website would be for every different brand of golf ball, that the same person chooses to look at.
So now that you know the difference between a visitor and a hit, which one should you be keeping your eye on when analyzing your website stats? Well, it is just as important to be watching your visitors as it is your hits. Your site visitors are important because this allows you to clearly see how many unique people are being directed to your website. It is always good to see how many different customers your website is attracting.
Your website hits are also important in the way that they show the number of pages that are currently being viewed on your site. You can use this information to see how well your website is doing its job. Is your website landing page enough to entice your visitors to dig deeper and spend more time on your website, reading more and more of its content and what it has to offer. Or are people simply hitting on to the first page and then quickly moving on?
So, here you have it, the difference between a hit and a visitor and if used correctly when analyzing your websites traffic, you can use them together to see how well your website is performing. Never underestimate the power of your website stats, it is analyzing these that will give you some insight in to the future of your website.
About The Author:
 Michelle Kirkbride | Michelle Kirkbride has many years of experience as a web developer & consultant, she currently lives in Yorkshire, UK with her two beautiful children and loving partner. She spends far too much time at her computer and is currently addicted to her work. |
I really liked this post. Can I copy it to my site? Thank you in advance.
nice post..
I liked this post, the sticky for me was your from Yorkshire, we moved down from Selby just outside York to the Isle of Wight, and the content, yeah you explain it in great detail which is good cause many sites can be very vague.
Thank You Michelle
James
http://www.googlestrafficpumpsystem.com/
Thanks James
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That was a interesting read, thank you.
Correct stats is always a problem
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I personally think that as time goes on, methods of on-page and off-page search engine optimization will differ as we think it. I think we will see a transformation towards user metrics in deciding ranking results. That combined with advanced personalized results and we’ll be seeing a large change of the users experience with Bing and the other SEs. Every search result won’t be made alike, just look at things like user involvement, bounce time, bounce rate, etc… Focus on a better site all around, and I think you’ll see better results in 2010.
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