What is the difference between unique visitors and hits

This term was mainly used by IT folks, early users of web analytics tools, to get an idea of the load on the web server. As Web Analytics has moved into marketing and we have moved to JavaScript based solutions, this term does not hold much meaning today as terms such as Page Views, Visits, Sessions, Users and Visitors have taken over.

Though the term is still used in terms of data collection by tools such as Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics. So what is a Hit anyway? This page is an html file with one image embedded in it.

When a person browses to this page in her internet browser , she is requesting this page from the server to be downloaded to her internet browser. She views this page as one entity. In return browser is actually requesting 2 items from the server.

When server returns these items, the browser assembles them and makes them look like one page to the person browsing this page. This is what the log file of the server might look like I have removed several items to make it simple. That means there were 2 hits on the server, one for the html page and one for the image. So with one page request there are 2 HITS in this example.

Sometimes read most of the time there are files that are not visible to the individual but still need to be downloaded from server and count towards the hits. You will see there are two more files that are embedded in the page. One is a style sheet stylesheet. If you are counting the Hits then there are 4 Hits on the server. I could put tiny images on my pages and generate hits an hour! How many Unique Visitors do you get a day? Your email address will not be published.

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting. Skip to content First, the definitions: Unique Visitors — The number of individuals who have visited your website. Want to talk? First Name. Last Name. Phone number. Email address Enter twice to verify. Your message. Unlimited admins.

Demo Now Have Questions? Keep in mind that the free version of Google Analytics comes with some limitations such as 10 million hits per month per website property. For further information on account and SDK limits read all about it here. Other software you can try out includes Clicky and Piwik now known as Matomo. Both these tools have free and paid versions and offer a slightly different experience compared to Google Analytics.

Getting more pageviews relates to increasing your website traffic. Although this might be a simple question to ask, many methods exist, each that would merit a blog post if not a course of its own. Social traffic: This can include building a social media following on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest. Alternatively, post your latest articles in Facebook groups. You can even create videos on YouTube or build a YouTube channel. Here are more tips and examples for driving social media traffic.

Paid traffic: This can include buying traffic through sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, native advertising, media buys, and many more. Here are 5 paid traffic sources to take a look at. Also, check out this list of 25 ways to increase website traffic from WordStream. Pageviews play a critical role in the life of a successful online publisher.