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September 23, 2005
pissing contests: a primer for the non-technical
Yeah, I got 2.5 million hits in the past year alone, and that's not counting the previous 4 years this blog has existed. But that doesn't mean shit since a hit is not a visit nor a page view. Since blogs are now all about popularity contests, pageantry, being offensive, and traffic whoring, I now have to say 30,000 people visited my site last month, but since it's cool to use the hit statistic with misleading numbers, I guess I am forced to say I got 214,000 hits last month.
A hit statistic from your server log is any request to the server, which could include access to embedded CSS code, a single banner graphic, or a single web page file. A page visit is a view of the home page, comment page, or blog entry page. For you blogwhores who are obsessed with who and how many people are viewing your site, you need to fixate more on the number of visits to your site. This represents one person viewing your site one time. He/she may be counted multiple times if he/she visits several times a day. If you really wanted to be humble you would crow about unique visits, which is only counting one visitor, regardless of how many times he/she viewed your site in a day.
Now, for the interesting stuff: who is the queen from Brunei Darussalam who's looking at my site? Howabout my stalker from Quinnipiac University? Where the hell is Quinnipiac University? Who the hell from Fannie May has time to read my blog? Give something back and get me a decent home loan in this area for some payback.
Posted by jimbo at September 23, 2005 10:12 AM
Comments
Oh, the irony!
Posted by: John at September 23, 2005 11:40 AM
Quinnipiac is actually in Hamden, CT and is pretty famous for their political polls. Know that you have heard the name you will take note of how many polls will be cited as the election gets closer (they do a lot of 'approval rating' type polls that get a lot of media attention).
I am in awe of all your blog traffic. I've seen mine steadily grow since I started it this year but growth to me is like 60-80 unique visitors a day! LOL. Not sure why I care but it's fun to cut things up with the webstats tool, I need to upgrade mine and work on my blog to make it lay out better! Anyhoo hope you have a good weekend!
Posted by: TOS at September 23, 2005 12:00 PM
damn, you beat me to it.
working in the web marketing field though, it's always nice to throw the "hits" statistics at old senior management who have no idea what it really means.
but i would never do anything as unethical as that. erhm.
Posted by: johnny at September 23, 2005 1:20 PM
There is a Quinnipiac College in Central Connecticut. One of its big programs is radio/TV broadcast courses and degree.
Posted by: Marc at September 23, 2005 1:43 PM
When I was a marketing director I did the same thing. Most of my members were old construction and concrete guys.
My favorite tactic was to show year over year comparisons of hits, vistiors, unique vistors pageviews etc. to get them all wrangled up and then leave them hanging
Posted by: TOS at September 23, 2005 3:53 PM
I try to educate my coworkers who I have to report to about Hits vs. Visits, but I think the term "Hits" is now so popularized (and misleading) it's a lost cause. I give up.
I GOT SIX KAJILLION HITS TODAY!!!
Posted by: jimbo at September 23, 2005 3:57 PM
You know an argument about hits and visits will inevitably descend to, "I know you are but what am I?" ::snort/giggle::
In professional terms, though, I always choose to baffle them with bullshit.
I can't add up my own statistics because, well, I was a journalism major. We don't do math. I'll be impressed, though, when I get a visitor from Upper Volta or something like that.
Posted by: Jeffrey at September 24, 2005 11:51 AM
I am also baffled by the surprising number of visitors I receive from the federal government. All OVER the place too, like the DEA, the FDA, NASA, CDC, etc. I am just dot-gov'in it all day. And I seem to have a devoted fan club of teenage girls in Kuala Lampur, which is kinda sweet.
Posted by: Joe.My.God. at September 26, 2005 8:25 AM
Hey, half those six kajillion hits were me . . . just checking to see if my comments were posted. Yes, I have a little OCD going somedays.
Posted by: Boo Augustus at September 26, 2005 10:25 AM
For the month of September I got 44865 hits and 11817 visits. A several people have subscribed to my blog via Bloglines and some other rss sub service. 4% of my vists come from the government, 190 hits from Lithuania, 163 from Germany, and 140 hits from Norway.
Posted by: Marie at September 29, 2005 7:54 AM
Ultima Thule, represent!
Posted by: abstract nixon at September 30, 2005 1:26 AM