Web statistics - Hits

[Edden]

I've only been running one website for a few months so I'm a bit new to this. Could anyone explain exactly what is meant by a "hit"? In my web statistics there seem to be variations. For example on some occasions a visitor recording one page can score only one hit. At other times one page can result in about 20 hits. The other thing is that I am not always sure that what appears as the number of pages scored by a visitor is literally true because I've tested it by visiting my own website.

 

[temi]

Measuring site visitors by hits is a but confusing because quite a number of action can be termed hit for example when a visitor arrives at a page, that is a hit, if the visitor reloads that page, some hit stats also count that as another hit etc etc.

If you want to know how many people actually visit your site for the first time then unique hits/visitors is what to look for. BTW, what stats software do you use?

Thanks

 

[Edden]

Hits

Thank you. My statistics are created by AWStats. Yes, "Unique Visitors" is the most important issue to me.

I created my website using Microsoft Publisher 2003. I find this quite OK but it does result in issues I do not find on most other websites. For example pictures cannot be saved with the usual right click. Perhaps it has implications regarding my original question.

 

[temi]

Lots of things has moved on the Internet since Microsoft Publisher 2003, your site (I mean the tool you use to create it) is a bit outdated so it will cause issues naturally. If you can find a way of creating your site in slightly more modern tool, some of the issues will go away.