The Difference between hits, page views & unique visitors

There is often a big misconception in many WAHM Forums between hits, page views and unique visitor stats. Many websites slap on a website counter that counts "hits" thinking that the over exaggerated number this type of counter generates will show their site visitors that their website receives a huge number of visitors on a daily basis.

However, if you are a work at home business buying effective real estate on-line you should be aware of the vast difference between hits, page views & unique visitors counters found on websites. When I say "real estate" I'm talking about ad spots or ad spaces.

Hits, visitors, visits, page views: what are the differences?

definition of a hit: each file sent to a browser by a web server is an individual hit.

In other words, a visitor comes to your homepage which contains not just the html file for that page, but also contains image files. All of this put together will generate the hit counter to count that many hits for that one page.

definition of a page view: a page view is each time a visitor views a webpage on your site, irrespective of how many hits are generated. 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 7 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 8 hits (7 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. Notice that page view counts are similar to hit counts.

Technically, a hit counter is a page counter, as it measures and presents the same information, the only difference being in name. Page counters often provide a service that measures page views on multiple pages of a website, as opposed to hit counters, which are typically used to count hits on a single page.

definition of a visit: a visit happens when someone or something (robot) visits your site. It consists of one or more page views/ hits. One visitor can have many visits to your site.

definition of a visitor: a visitor is the browser of a person who accepts a cookie. Opentracker tracks cookies through a javascript. By this definition, a visitor is a human being, and their actions are 'human' events, because only humans use javascript to navigate the internet. If a cookie is not accepted, then an IP numbers is used to track visitors.

Technically speaking, “one visitor” means “one person” based on the definition of a unique visitor. So that if someone continuously visits your site over long periods of time, they will be recorded only as one visitor. This of course depends on the time frame you have programmed your counter. In other words, your counter settings can allow you to set your unique visitor count to start counting a unique visit after 30 minutes has elapase. Meaning, if that person returns to your website again in an hour, their visit will be considered a unique visit and will be logged as a returning visitor in your counter log analysis as well as your unique visitor stat.

What will show in your unique visitor counter value will be the amount of time one visitor has requested to view your website within every 30 minute time span. It is recommended that you set your Maximum Visit Length between 1 hour to 6 hours. Basically, a visitor won't come back to your website immediately usually a returning unique visitor will bookmark a favorite website and return within a day or two or more.

Your visit to your website, should not be logged into your counter value. Many web counters allow each account to block the owner's website visit to their own website. However, there are many web counter's that do not allow you to block your visits, so make sure you find and install one that will allow you this function. A web owner's visit can over inflate a web counter because their visits are being logged. Of course it is often imperative for web owner's to visit their website to make sure that their changes or additions are showing up correctly. If your site is being maintained by a web designer, make sure that their visits are not being logged as well.

In summation, if you plan to pay for advertising 0n any website, you should make sure that the counter value is registering "Unique Visitor" hits and not "hits or page views". Many site owner's have invisible counters installed on their website and deem it "unprofessional" to have a counter in full view.

The counter stats should be public for anyone who offers advertising on their website. How else can a potential ad customer decide whether or not the site is worth spending ad money on? Of course, the counter value should not be the deciding factor when any business owner decides to put their hard earned advertising dollars on any website.

Google PageRank: Not Worth the Worry

In the wahm forums and groups the need to understand page ranks have been a pretty hot topic. I found an advertising company on-line that would pay me $5 per purchased advertised link because at the time I had a PR4. I figured why not, it helps to pay the bills, lol . . . besides I was able to choose the websites that could add their links to this section of my website.

This sample does mean a high PR will net you the ability to request higher advertising dollars for your high PR valued real estate space on-line. But I can attest to the fact that my advertising clients don't really care about the PR of my website, the usual question is where I place in Search Engine results and what are the keywords.

Yes, Page Ranks are important but it depends on who you talk to. Some would say that a listing in the top page of Search Engine results is most important while others think a PR3 is not as good as a PR4 website.

The article below will hopeful help to explain what a Page Rank is and why you shouldn't be too pre-occupied with it.

Google PageRank: Not Worth the Worry
By John Metzler

I notice that a lot of webmasters are obsessed with Google PageRank (Entire sections of SEO forums are even devoted to PR). Web sites do not live and die by their PageRank. A PR 6 web site may rank lower than a site with a PR 5 due to other Search Engine Optimization factors. Search engine results are not proportional to a web site's PageRank value.

The PageRank value is a representation of a web site's internal and external link structure. Internally, your web site's pages should be easily accessible from each other and use anchor text relevant to the theme of the web site. Externally speaking, outbound links should be good quality and/or relevant to your web site's content. And finally, it is widely known that incoming links also contribute quite a bit to PageRank. There is obviously much more to achieving good search engine rankings that the above linking strategies.

With that being said, many webmasters become obsessed with the PageRank of their web sites and consider it to be the bottom line of any search engine marketing campaign. This type of thinking can cloud a much more important issue of whether or not the client has seen an improvement in search engine placement and web site traffic. Always base your achievements on specific rankings for keywords that have been well-researched. If you go parading around about achieving a PageRank of 6 for your client, he or she won't care if they aren't seeing a return on their investment, now will they?

If you're working to increase your link popularity through reciprocal links and refuse to link to web sites that are lower than PR 5, rethink your strategy. Well-designed, well-ranked sites with informative content are always a safe bet to link out to. That was my basic strategy with a client of mine, www.1bbweb.com.

They have a PageRank 4 (at the time of writing this article, January 2005) and rank at #6 on Google for 'bed and breakfast directory' (without quotes). The #7 result has a PR 6 and the next three spots in the first page of results are PR 5 web sites, all higher than my client. This example is repeated throughout the Web and proves that preoccupying yourself with PageRank can result in losing sight of more important ranking factors.

An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm.

My notes:

In the second paragraph the article states "The PageRank value is a representation of a web site's internal and external link structure. Internally, your web site's pages should be easily accessible from each other and use anchor text relevant to the theme of the web site."

I want to dissect this statement a bit. If the PR value is indeed representative of your link structure then this is the reason why many websites do not go beyond a PR#2.

I have seen many websites where there aren't any relevant anchor text to their internal or external links. Many also do not create their navigation to make it easy for their visitors to manuever around on their sites. I'm talking about those sites that have external links the loads into the same browser or internal links that loads into a new window or links that take you completely to another section of their website and you can't find a link to get back to where you were without clicking on your "Back" button at the top of your browser page.

Aside from site navigation that makes sense, optimizing your webpage with topic specific keywords and content as well as providing relevant content go hand in hand. I've seen some websites that weren't very pleasant to look at, but guess what, when I did a search I landed on their website because they were at the top of the search engine results.

Take my website for instance:
The Work At Home Business Mall was a PR3 before I launched it. It stayed as a PR#4 for several months and now it is a PR#5. When I did my SEO for the site it raised my PR one more value.

Site navigation for a site that is full of information and resource is difficult, but it can be done. PR values are important but not as important as being on the top page results of any search engine.

Good luck with your website and until next time, "here's to your success on-line!"

Keeping Your Website's Content Relevant

Continuing with the topic of Search Engine Algorithm. Last article explained the need to have relevant content for your website including having links that have contents relevant to your website. The article below by John Metzler explains how you can achieve this process and why it is necessary for High Search Engine Page Ranking. I have made bold some words in this article to make sure these key elements are not missed.

Keeping Your Website's Content Relevant
By John Metzler

Visitors and search engines love content-rich web sites, but just having a lot of content on your web site is not enough. It all has to be relevant to a main topic with each page or section of the web site having a specific theme (And yes, this includes any resource or links pages the site may have). Each page should have its own topic and content should not stray to a different topic.

If you are promoting your graphic design business and have a page on business card design, stay on the topic and refrain from using a page title such as "Graphic Design company in Vancouver, Canada - business cards, logos, letterheads". Your want the business card design to be the most important key phrase.

There are two main reasons for content relevancy. The first is so that visitors have an easy time understanding the flow of your web site. Visitors who have to search through multiple pages to find the information they're looking for won't be visitors much longer. The average web site user takes about three seconds to decide whether or not stay on a site. A clear idea of what your site is about should be apparent immediately, followed by easy navigation to other pages that display further topics in more detail.

The second reason for keeping content relevant throughout your web site is for search engine algorithms. Keyword relevancy is an important part of search engine optimization. The more relevant your web site's content is for a specific term, the more likely the site is to show up near the top of search results for the term.

Keyword density is another big deal with search engines. There is an optimal ratio of key terms to the overall amount of text that must be used for search engine optimization purposes. The more unrelated terms that are used consistently throughout the content will bring down the percentage of more important keywords. Keyword density matters throughout an entire web site, not just on certain pages.

Other areas to keep an eye on are the contact page, about us page, and any other pages that you may not think are important to have optimized for search engines such as advertising info, privacy policy, etc. For instance, some web sites have pages devoted to reciprocal links. There's nothing wrong with them unless you link out to a lot of unrelated web sites. The keywords that are used in the anchor text and surrounding description text will detract from your overall site content if they are not related. Incoming links from unrelated sites are fine, but keep in mind that the links page counts as part of your web site as a whole.

Consider using a reciprocal links page as more of a resource for visitors instead of a long list of irrelevant sites. This not only appeases search engines but your visitors as well. And as mentioned before, both visitors and search engines should be kept in mind when creating web site content.

An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm.

My notes:

Many of us are guilty of many if not all of the actions above. Before learning SEO I never considred optimizing my Contact Page, did you? What I did to start re-doing my website was to start making sure that the important sections (main entry pages, i.e. home page, category main pages, etc) were optimized for the content of each page. The home page I optimized by making sure that I had relevant "anchor text link" titles for each link whether it was within my domain or outbound leading to some other website. This also includes image comment tags. I also had to make sure that I didn't over saturate using just enough main keyword within each type of optimization tactic used.

This wasn't an easy feat but worth the effort. I did this type of technique for each of the important portal pages that were used as entry to my website. In my experience the homepage is by far the hardest to optimize. Why? Because it is the main hub of your domain, it has to contain most of your keyword specific target words.

How did I do in the Google Jagger? I lost a few ground in some of my chosen keywords, but with the optimization and making sure that I wasn't breaking any rules, the website is now doing well and listed again in Google taking number one in my keyword "Work at Home Business Mall".

Although Google is a very important Search Engine I must emphasize that there are other powerful and frequently used search engines as well and you should not create your website just for one particular search engine. The main thing to remember when creating or redeveloping your website for top Search Engine Page Ranking is to make sure that you follow these simple rules:

1. Figure out what your website is all about and tune in to a handful of topic specifc keywords to target. These targets will be your basis when you create links to other websites or considering a link exchange with another site. Remember, you can be a craft store providing relevant content with articles on making crafts, craft show links, craft related materials and products, etc . . . In other words, just because you are in the business of making handmade crafts does not mean you do not have other venues related to crafts that can be used to create information for your website visitors.
2. Make sure that your Anchor Text is related to your keywords. If you are a craft store for instance the link text to your website should not be just the name of your store, it should include your main keywords. This can be done to specific sections of your website as well if exchanging links with relevant websites.
3. Investigate the website you plan to link to or considering a link exchange with.
4. Do not use Frames on your homepage or any major entry pages of your website, use SSI instead.
5. Make sure that your site load time is within 5 seconds.
6. Optimize your website as your building it and if you're in the process of redoing it, take one chunk or section at a time.
7. Don't create your website just for Search Engines, remember your site is for potential customers not just search engines.

I hope this article was helpful for your future or present SEO attempts. My next post will be more about Search Engines but more specifically your Page Ranking.

Predicting Search Engine Algorithm Changes

If you have been to this blog before this article is going to help you realize that you need to change the way you have your website or at least help you understand what a "search algorithm" is all about.

Predicting SearchEngine Algorithm Changes

By John Metzler

With moderate search engine optimization knowledge, some common sense, and a resourceful and imaginative mind, one can keep his or her web site in good standing with search engines even through the most significant algorithm changes. The recent Google update of October/November 2005, dubbed "Jagger", is what inspired me to write this, as I saw some web sites that previously ranked in the top 20 results for extremely competitive keywords suddenly drop down to the 70th page. Yes, the ebb and flow of search engine rankings is nothing to write home about, but when a web site doesn't regain many ranking spots after such a drop it can tell us that the SEO done on the site may have had some long-term flaws. In this case, the SEO team had not done a good job predicting the direction a search engine would take with its algorithm.

Impossible to predict, you say? Not quite. The ideas behind Google's algorithm come from the minds of fellow humans, not supercomputers. I'm not suggesting that it's easy to "crack the code" so to speak because the actual math behind it is extremely complicated. However, it is possible to understand the general direction that a search engine algorithm will take by keeping in mind that any component of SEO which is possible to manipulate to an abnormal extent will eventually be weighted less and finally rendered obsolete.

One of the first such areas of a web site that started to get abused by webmasters trying to raise their rankings was the keywords meta tag. The tag allows a webmaster to list the web site's most important keywords so the search engine knows when to display that site as a result for a matching search. It was only a matter of time until people started stuffing the tag with irrelevant words that were searched for more frequently than relevant words in an attempt to fool the algorithm. And they did fool it, but not for long. The keywords meta tag was identified as an area that was too susceptible to misuse and was subsequently de-valued to the point where the Google algorithm today doesn't even recognize it when scanning a web page.

Another early tactic which is all but obsolete is repeating keywords at the bottom of a web page and hiding them by changing the color of the text to match the background color. Search engines noticed that this text was not relevant to the visitor and red-flagged sites that employed this method of SEO.

This information is quite basic, but the idea behind the aforementioned algorithm shifts several years ago is still relevant today. With the Jagger update in full swing, people in the SEO world are taking notice that reciprocal links may very well be going the way of the keywords meta tag. (i.e. extinct) Webmasters across the world have long been obsessed with link exchanges and many profitable web sites exist offering services that help webmasters swap links with ease. But with a little foresight, one can see that link trading has its days numbered, as web sites have obtained thousands of incoming links from webmasters who may have nevër even viewed the web site they are trading with. In other words, web site popularity is being manipulated by excessively and unnaturally using an SEO method.

So with keyword meta tags, keyword stuffing within content, and nöw link exchanges simply a part of SEO history, what will be targeted in the future? Well, let's start with what search engines currently look at when ranking a web site and go from there:

On-page Textual Content

In the future, look for search engines to utilize ontological analysis of text. In other words, not only your main keywords will play a factor in your rankings, but also words that relate to them. For example, someone trying to sell NFL jerseys online would naturally mention the names of teams and star players. In the past, algorithms might have skipped over those names, deemed them irrelevant to a search for "NFL jerseys." But in the future, search engines will reward those web sites with a higher ranking than those that excessively repeat just "NFL jerseys." With ontological analysis, web sites that speak of not only the main keywords but other relevant words can expect higher rankings.

The Conclusion: Write your web site content for your visitors, not search engines. The more naturally written sites can expect to see better results in the future.

Offering Large Amounts of Content

This can frequently take the form of dynamic pages. Even nöw, search engines can have a difficult time with dynamic content on web sites. These pages usually have lengthy URLs consisting of numbers and characters such as &, =, and ? The common problem is that the content changes so frequently on these dynamic pages that the page becomes "old" in the search engine's database, thus leaving searchers seeing results that contain old information. Since many dynamic pages are created by web sites displaying hundreds or thousands of products they sell, and the number of people selling items on the Internet will obviously increase in the coming years, you can expect that search engines will improve their technology and do a better job indexing dynamic content in the future.

The Conclusion: Put yourself ahead of the game if you are selling products online and invest in database and shopping cart software that is SEO-friendly.

Incoming Links

Once thought to be a very difficult thing to manipulate, incoming links to one's web site have been abused by crafty SEOs and webmasters the world over. It is finally at a point where Google is doing a revamp of what constitutes a "vote from [one site to another]" as they explain it in their webmaster resources section. Link exchanges are worth significantly less nöw than ever to the point where the only real value in obtaining them is to make sure a new web site gets crawled by search engine spiders.

Over the years, many web sites reached top spot for competitive keywords by flexing their financial muscle and buying thousands of text links pointing to their site with keywords in the anchor text. Usually these links would appear like advertisements along sidebars or navigation areas of web sites. Essentially this was an indirect way of paying for high Google rankings, something which Google is no doubt trying to combat with each passing algorithm update. One idea of thought is that different areas of a web page from a visual point of view will be weighted differently. For example, if a web site adds a link to your site within the middle of their page text, that link should count for more than one at the bottom of the site near the copyright information.

This brings up the value of content distribution. By writing articles, giving away free resources, or offering something else of value to people, you can create a significant amount of content on other web sites that will include a link back to your own.

The Conclusion: It all starts with useful content. If you are providing your web site visitors with useful information, chances are many other sites will want to do the same. SEO doesn't start with trying to cheat the algorithm; it starts with an understanding of what search engines look for in a quality web site.

About The Author
An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm, and services American clients through SEOTampa.com.

My Thoughts:

This article speaks volumes but will many listen? As a web developer I've always told anyone who asked that relevant content is key to getting higher ranking especially in the Google Search Engine. However, I visit websites whose owners have been asking for SEO help in forums and taking classes supposed free SEO classes and aside from making making their website look a little better, all they are managing to do is advertise the group that this class is being advertised in.

A few years ago I purchased a search submission software and started immersing myself in the machination of SEO techniques. I have read and studied the search engine reports that my program has spat out. The report is a bit daunting considering at any given time the report can run over 300 pages, but if diligently studied you can learn what can be done to improve ones website.

Meta Keyword tag is useful only if used to create the specific keywords for the particular page. In other words, each page with meta tag keywords should concentrate on the important keyword aspects of that particular page.

My Work at Home Business Mall advertising creation for my clients provides this type of service. I make sure that each of my clients full page advertisement is related to what is being written on their advertisement page. I have gone as far as making sure that each article uses this type of technique. The Work at Home Business Mall is huge but slowly and surely I have been able to use this technique and make necessary changes to major important portal pages of the website.

To figure out if this technique has been worth it, I run a Search Engine Ranking report once a month. This report tells me which keywords the Work at Home Business Mall has been picked up by major Search Engines, what URL, what position, what page and what the page ranking is. Yes, page ranking, each page has a ranking which is decisively important when you are trying to make sure that each page of your website is seen and picked up by search engines.

The last SER that I ran was very exciting! The Work at Home Business Mall is now taking #1 position on the first page of many search engine (Google, MSN, Yahoo, Hot Bot, Ask, Netscape, etc . .. ) for the keywords that I have chosen.

In summation, I hope this article proves helpful for anyone who comes upon this blog. Relevant Content, page specific keyword meta tags, link text title and relevant link exchange is what helps any website get their site in the top pages of the major search engines.

The next set of entries that I make in this blog will be articles on Search Engine Optimization and Building your Small Work at Home Business website for better ranking in the Search Engines.