Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Really basic question about counting 'unique

Walter Soldierer (Walter.Soldierer_at_t-online.de)
Wed, 14 May 1997 10:28:59 +0200

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At 19:41 13.05.1997 -0500, PiYeePress_at_aol.com wrote:

>The question: If 'uniqeness' is determined by the IP address of the document
>requester, how does one take into account dynamic assignment? That is, most
>ISPs assign a dialup customer any one of a number of IP addresses each time
>they dial up. So hits on a page from several different IP addresses actually
>represent the same person requesting the page during an unknown number of
>distinct sessions.

While this scenario is possible the accuracy of "unique host impressions"
(UHI) is even worse if you think the other way round. An IP address is
assigned to many different users. So only one out of many visitors surfing
under the same IP address is counted.

Some of the ad networks are based on UHI and one of them recently confirmed
that UHIs represent no more than 60% of total impressions on many sites. It
depends on 1) how many visitors a site gets from popular IPs like AOL, 2)
the number of page reloads, and 3) whether a given banner is displayed on
single or multiple pages.

>Or is there a different way that 'uniqueness' can be determined?

You could assign a unique user session ID for creating dynamic pages or use
a combination of IP number, browser ID and session time to track (sort of)
"unique" visitors. Cookies are a better way to make sure that an ad is sent
to a given browser only once within a certain time period (usually 24
hours). However, some people have turned cookies off and some browsers
don't support them but using cookies is by far more accurate for counting
unique visitors than tracking IP numbers.

--Walter

-- ------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Walter Soldierer hermes_at_all-yours.net
All-Yours Internet Solutions http://www.all-yours.net/
The Digital Postcard autoresponder response_at_all-yours.net

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