Re: Hits, Views or page views OR Visits

From: Tina Reed <tina_at_mail.marketnetconsulting.com>
Date: Thu 07 Dec 2000 11:10:34 -0500

VENKATESHWARULU J N <dijjer_at_hotmail.com> WROTE:
> We were using a software for our log analysis which
> reports 'User Sessions', Session Time, Hits, Pageviews
> and other parameters. Later we started using another
> (additional) software which reports Hits, Pageviews,
> Document Views, Visits, visitors (and not users/ user
> sessions). Given these two reporting metrics I am
> confused. No amount of analysis/ crunching of the two
> numbers has helped me correlate the two numbers. In
> short how do I relate User Sessions to Visits; Unique
> Users to Visitors; And what is a 'Document View'
> vis-a-vis Page View. Any help regarding how to read
> these numbers will be very helpful.

Well, it certainly can be a challenge to decipher
server traffic reports. Especially when you are trying
to compare apples to oranges (or vice versa). You
should first try to contact whoever set up the
reporting on your server to find out what
specifications they used. Clarify the terminology and
how its defined--hits, page views, etc. They can mean
different things in different software programs, and
depends on how the reports were set up. There may also
be differences between WebTrends and WebTrends Live.

I would stick with page views (or impressions, or
accesses) as a base figure. Once you figure that out,
move on to other measurements. If you sell
advertising, that is the key piece of information
anyway. Also, in general, page views would tend to be
more accurate than unique users.

People use traffic terms loosely in the Internet world,
but all that really matters is that you are consistent
in your tracking methods so you can monitor progress.
(As you are well aware.) Wish I could be of more help.
I did write some general information about traffic
reports on my site, which explains differences in page
views and hits, etc. without going into detail here.

Tina Reed
Search Engine Ranking Specialist
MarketNet Consulting
Article: http://marketnetconsulting.com/novnewsletter.html





Received on Thu Dec 07 2000 - 10:10:34 CST