Hits Vs Pageviews | Visits Vs Visitors
What Are The Differences?
A hit is when a web server sends a file to the browser at the request of the viewer. This includes the pages as well as any separate file included in the page, such as an image. The image is considered a file and generates a hit in addition to the hit the page generates that the image is a part of.
A Page View is each time a visitor views a webpage, independent of all the files incorporated on that page. For example, a webpage may consist of the information plus 7 image files. When a visitor views that page, it counts as one page view, but 8 hits.
HITS are not a reliable way to measure website traffic. There are actually 2 types of hits. There are hits that are recorded by log files, and interpreted by log analysis. There are also hits that are counted and displayed by a simple counter. The hit counters count every time a page is viewed. The hit counters do not distinguish unique visitors.
A visit happens when someone, or a robot, visits your site. It can consist of one or more page views or hits. One visitor can have multiple visits to your site.
A visitor is someone who accepts a cookie. This can be defined as a human being because the cookie has to be accepted, which can only be done by a human visitor, not a robot. The cookie can be tracked/measured and is unique to the viewer. Tracking of cookies is more reliable than other methods such as IP number tracking of visitors as ISPs can change the IP numbers periodically.
Cookies are measured as the same visitor with each visit, unless the user continuously deletes their cookies.