Difference between 'hits' and 'visits'

An important question I was asked recently from a client was about his website log: "What is the difference between hits and visits?" There is a specific technical difference. Here goes...


The technical definition of a hit is each file sent to a browser by a web server. And the technical definition of a visit is each time a visitor views a webpage on your site, irrespective of how many hits are generated. This is not a visit to a site but a visit to an individual page within the site.


Pages are comprised of files. Every image in a page is a separate file. When a visitor looks at a page (i.e. a page view), they may see numerous images, graphics, pictures etc. and generate multiple hits. For example, if you have a page with 10 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 11 hits (10 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. This is the reason to check the page views and not hits.


Additionally, there is a high potential for confusion here, because there are two types of 'hits'. These are the hits recorded by log files, and interpreted by log analysis. A second type of 'hits' are counted and displayed by a simple hit counter. Hit counters record one hit for every time a webpage is viewed, also problematic because it does not distinguish unique visitors.


So this is why hits are not a reliable way to measure website traffic, the number of visits is what you are interested in.


So hits include all elements that make up your page: animation, images and the html itself. Whereas visits are the page as a whole.


I hope this helps.