Hits vs. Visits

[Surfacing0325]

Been using AWStats for a good while now, just switched hosts and they have Webalizer installed... AWstats shows you vistors and hits where Webalizer only shows hits...

Could someone tell me what a hit is ?

[T Pat]

A hit is a pull of any piece of content, an image, an html file, a css file, anything
one visit could pull hundreds of hits

[Toby]

visits = unique user sessions, aka unique visitors or just uniques

It's quit possible for the same user to have multiple visits (user sessions) in one day if he returns multiple times with enough time between visits for the user session to expire. (usually about 15 minutes on most web servers)

Obviously visits is a far better measure of site traffic than hits.

[secretagentwilly]

good answers TPat and Toby...I wasn't super clear on that...