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WebTrends Report Definitions Understanding Hits, Page Views and User Sessions There are several different measures of web site activity and volume of visitors. The following document will explain the key methods for measuring traffic, their differences, and the corresponding statistics that appear in your WebTrends reports. A web page that is returned to a browser by a server contains various elements, or files. These may include HTML text, graphic images (such as .gif, jpg, .bmp), or audio or video files. When the server returns the page, a log is created, which summarizes the actions taken by the server, and the files returned to the browser. WebTrends products analyze, summarize and report the contents of these log files for the consumer. Methods for Measuring Web Site Activity The three most common measurements of web site activity are hits, page views and user sessions. Following is a description of each. A hit is a request to a server for a file. Total Hits is the total number of files requested, including all graphics, audio/video files, and other supporting files, as well as the actual HTML page itself. The Total Hits do not indicate whether the files were retrieved successfully, only the number of total requests. Total Successful Hits, on the other hand, refers only to those files that were successfully served. Page Views (or Page Impressions) is the number of pages (files with extensions such as .htm, .html, .asp, etc.) viewed, not including the supporting graphic files. The number of total hits will most likely be greater than the number of page views. For instance, if a site has a web page with 10 graphics on it, every time a user visited that page, it would be reported that 11 hits and one page view (impression) occurred. User Sessions (or Visitor Sessions) is the number of unique users who visited a web site during a certain time period. For instance, if a user views your web site home page, then exits, the user would have logged one page view and one user session. On the other hand, if a user views your home page and 4 other pages within your web site, 5 page views and one user session would be logged. |
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