It has come to my attention that many people do not understand the difference between a website “HIT” vs. a website “Page View”. Everyday your website will receive both hits and page views. What do millions of hits per month versus thousands of page views mean when you look at your traffic logs? It's all about the graphics on a webpage vs the user viewering the page.

Here’s some information you should understand before we proceed:

1.      1 graphic/image equals 1 hit

2.      1 webpage equals 1 page view

3.      A page view is sometimes referred to as a request. This is because you are requesting a page be loaded when you click on a website or any of the sub pages.

4.      Loading means the webpage appears on your browser.

5.      The terms visit or visitors have no precise meaning unless the site is tracking its users. The term page view is the basic agreed upon standard

Information about a website's traffic is kept in the log file, a kind of general record. For more direct identification of the user , many websites use cookies. Similar to knowing what apartment house someone lives in, but not the specific apartment.

The number of graphics displayed on the webpage equals the number of hits. The display of the webpage is a constant number. Number of hits equals number of graphics plus 1 hit for the page.

For example:

 1 graphic + 1 webpage ( 1 hit + 1 page view ) = 2 hits
10 graphics + 1 webpage (10 hits + 1 page view) = 11 hits
100 graphics + 1 webpage ( 100 hits + 1 page view ) = 101 hits
1000 graphics + 1 webpage (1000 hits + 1 page view ) = 1001 hits
10,000 graphics + 1 webpage (10,000 hits + 1 page view) = 10,001 hits
100,000 graphics + 1 webpage (100,000 hits + 1 page view) = 100,001 hits

I hope this helps everyone understand why the hit count is so great vs. the page views.

Regards,

Matt your SEO Blogmaster

SEO Consultant for Rioforma.com