WordPress.com Forums » Topic: Difference between views and visitors

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 10:30:37 +0000

Hallo - I also notice frequent discrepancies in the views countries visitors ratio. It might be due to the fact that some visits or views don't get recorded as from countries - because my total from countries is usually less than the total of views. Maybe this is where readers use phones etc. I don't know! I can't even try to get my head around the math. I think WP continue to fine-tune things. So I regard my stats as an approximate indicator.

The visitors count is delayed - we've been told - behind the views count. It takes a few hours or a day for it to stabilize. So you might find at least 5 visits for that time, later on today.

Always nice to learn a bit more, how it works, however!

marieschoenbach on "Difference between views and visitors"

marieschoenbach — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 08:58:33 +0000

Hi there,

So far, I guess, I understood the difference between visitors and views, sounds actually pretty logical to me.
BUT during the last hour, my stats say I had 1 visitor and 24 views, but from 5 different countries...??! I don't get it.. How's that even possible?

Appreciate any help or advise, thnx!!

http://www.Schoenbach-Jewelry.com

svetlanagrobman on "Difference between views and visitors"

svetlanagrobman — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 21:59:07 +0000

I just started a new blog (in fact, I'm still building it), and I noticed a difference between my statistics (visitors, page views) and my actual visitors. My statistical data is 1 visitor, 7 view. However, I got 9 likes (9 unique visitors) and 2 followers. What's wrong with my statistical data?

Thanks,
Svetlana Grobman

The post I refer to is http://wp.me/p34Vxu-o (weekly challenge: Illumination)
My blog is located at http://svetlanagrobman.wordpress.com/

jblz on "Difference between views and visitors"

jblz — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 19:17:27 +0000

@janeadamsart: when the Views by Country total is less than the total number of Views, it means our data provider wasn't able to pinpoint the location to a country for some of your Visitors.

stonecoldtruth2011 on "Difference between views and visitors"

stonecoldtruth2011 — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 18:57:01 +0000

@zandyring Yes that helps. THANKS! and Happy New Year.

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:42:15 +0000

Hey - as soon as I bothered you with it again, the views-visits stats suddenly showed all the numbers since 3 Dec! So that's OK now.
I just did a quick count of today's so far. Visitors 155. Countries 343. Views 395. Clicks on my blog (pictures) 14
Why is there a difference between countries and views? I have always noticed it.
I would like to understand better the posts and the clicks on my blog. The clicks on my pictures are not the same as the posts.
But many of the views recorded in posts are pictures on the blog - pictures which are in galleries and not inserted into the post. Are these found externally by search engines, or internally by the visitor?
I don't want to waste your time, but can you give me any idea how it works? It might be nice to know! Thanks.
Thanks also for the reminder to clear cookies, which I forgot about the last few weeks.

jblz on "Difference between views and visitors"

jblz — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:50:21 +0000

@janeadamsart: I'm seeing "Views per Visitor" on hover on each of your days since December 3rd. Can you please try clearing your cache and reloading the stats page?

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 14:59:01 +0000

Thanks. Just two things:
1) When a visitor clicks on links/pictures in my blog, those are views? But those show up to be different from the posts. They are a different count altogether.
2) the countrys stat is not the same as the visits or views stats. It is somewhere in between.
3) Why do my visitor/view stats only show the number ratio for the more busy days, and not for the less busy days? For instance, any day which is about 50 or 60% of a peak day, only shows the colour ratio, not the number crunch.

Thank you very much for all your help.

zandyring on "Difference between views and visitors"

zandyring — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 14:36:48 +0000

@stonecoldtruth - if someone reads all your posts on your homepage in the blogroll, that only counts as one view - your homepage. But if they click each post title and open it, then you'll get additional post views. Say one visitor comes to your site. They view the homepage, (one view), then click through to each of 3 posts to see them on their own pages (three more views) gives you 4 views from one visitor. Does that help at all?

@janeadamsart - as long as the viewer lands on your actual blog, you have a visitor. If they are reading RSS but don't click into your blog and actually visit your blog (URL), the visit won't register. Clicking on different links within your blog (as in my above example) does count as different views, from the same visitor.

I hope that helps clear up some of the confusion!

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 12:06:32 +0000

This is a topic of some general interest. Has anyone else noticed in the last couple days (in the stats) that views and visits numbers-ratio now only show on the busiest days? e.g. in the row of columns, my days which are around 50-60% less busy, show the vis/view ratio in colour, but not numbers; above this level, they show both. Till end of last week, they all showed, ever since 3 December when the feature started. I guess this feature is still in process?

I now understand, re googlegargoyle's entry, that if someone clicks on my Home page and scrolls, this is one page, and therefore a visit. If the same visitor clicks on a recent post - or on the page list of complete posts in my archive - this is a URL, and counts as a view.

If a visitor finds one of my posts url or pictures url through a search engine and clicks, that is a visit?
A click through facebook or anything which has my url, or the url of one of my posts, is a visit.
Reading an email or "reader" notification, without clicking on the blog's url or the post url, does not show up as a visit or a view.

Tell me please, does clicking on links between my blogs, count as a view or a visit?
Thanks.

googlegargoyle on "Difference between views and visitors"

googlegargoyle — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 16:05:58 +0000

Not entirely sure about this myself. But is it like if you visit the main blog page its a single page count no matter how far you scroll. But clicking on the permanent link of a post is another page count.

How helpful that is, I'm not sure.

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:21:41 +0000

I would much like clarification on this, too!

stonecoldtruth2011 on "Difference between views and visitors"

stonecoldtruth2011 — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 13:21:03 +0000

I'm still confused. What is the difference between a post and a page? If a visitor visits my blog - http://www.stonecoldtruth2011.wordpress.com - and scrolls down to view all past posts is that one visitor and one view ... or what? Do I have 25+ pages, or 1 page with 25+ posts? If 1 visitor views all posts in the same visit does it count different than if they visit numerous different times and view a different post each time? etc.

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 17:13:06 +0000

Hi Jake, interesting you should mention that, because I have noticed for some time in my stats that the Views number bears no relation to the number from the countries, it is usually more, while the Visitors number is less. I checked just now. Today there are so far 108 Visitors and 228 from the map of countries and 261 Views. So , like yourself I would be interested, to know better how this works out. Thanks for your attention, wp!

jakejackson451 on "Difference between views and visitors"

jakejackson451 — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:58:07 +0000

Curiously the number of country views exceeds the number of visitors on my site. Not sure how that is possible...

parentyourbusiness on "Difference between views and visitors"

parentyourbusiness — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 17:06:56 +0000

Thanks for this discussion. I could not figure out why the comments and responses I received outside the blog didn't tie with the number of site visitors. Didn't realize there was a time lag. I guess I'm too used to instant feedback!

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:20:14 +0000

Staff assist please

Oh RATS! I didn't know I had copied all of that. I only wanted to paste art of it. Will Staff please remove my comment at http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/difference-between-views-and-visitors?replies=27#post-1098491

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:18:19 +0000

The situation has not changed. All that has changed is that we are now being informed of how many unique visitors we have.

WordPress.com stats are now and have always been page view stats. Every time a link is clicked and a new page is opened that is recorded as a stat. Example: If I come to your blog and click links into 4 different posts and/or pages on your blog that creates 4 page view stats.

one cool site
WordPress blogging tips tools & tutorials
Visitor tracking on WordPress.com blogs Edit this entry

Posted on October 2, 2009 by timethief

diversity1Once you have created your new WordPress.com blog, you will need to add your new blog to your Google web masters account, generate and submit a site map, and register with search engines. After you have published a few posts and attracted some visitors some questions will begin to arise.

Visitor tracking questions

Where did your blog visitors come from?
Which search engines did unique visitor hits or returning unique web visitors come from?
What path did they take on your site?
Which browser and which operating system do your visitors use?
How long are your visitors on your page per visit and how many pages did they view?
What time of the day did they come?

Hits, Page Views, Unique Visitors
What is a hit? In web analytics, a hit is any request for a file from a web server. By request means a hit calculates page content delivered, all images to complete that page, and any additional files that need to be loaded to make the web page you are looking at, appear the way it does.

What is a page view? A page view is a request to load a single page of an internet site that results from a page request from a web surfer clicking on a link on another HTML page which is pointing to the page in question.

What is a unique visitor? A unique visitor is access from a single IP to a web server that generates page views and hits during a particular visit. When a visitor has cookies disabled, there is no way of establishing if they are a unique visitor or not.

janeadamsart on "Difference between views and visitors"

janeadamsart — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 09:07:17 +0000

Hallo, glad this discussion is going on. I am a little confused by what is said by wp in Support: "A view is only counted for a post or page when the permalink URL is visited. For example, if a visitor reads a post titled “Hello World” while viewing the home page of your blog, the view will not be counted towards the post, only towards total views." I understood this to mean that the views of different posts during one visit to a blog, didn't count - only the URL of home page or one of the posts did. Now the situation seems to be that every view is counted. OR - perhaps you mean that clicks on previous posts are URLs and count as a view, whereas scrolling up and down the home page doesn't. Can you please clarify? By the way I don't read the blogs I follow from the reader, I always click on their url, because then I can see the whole presentation. No point in missing out!

metan1 on "Difference between views and visitors"

metan1 — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 23:52:54 +0000

I always wondered if people stumbled across my blog by accident or were here having a look around, now I can keep better track.

Loving the new aspect of stats, thanks WP :)

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 21:09:17 +0000

@mikeosbornphoto

We all want to see traffic, so the more sources the better!

I hear that mantra everywhere but it's not my chant. I'm not into the scattergun approach when it comes to blog promotion. I don't value any "like" that's not a true expression of appreciation for content. I pay to keep ads off my blog and opportunistic baggage that comes with advertising.

I want targeted traffic nit a tsunami of like button clickers who contribute nothing of value to the blog and I do what I can to secure it. Successful blogs draw between 30 - 60 % of their incoming targeted readers from search engine referrals. Some draw even more.

Learning how to use keywords effectively in your content is key to drawing search engine traffic. That produces display of links to your posts in search engine results when people look for posts by typing those terms into search engines like Google and Bing, etc.

Targeted readers are different from casual like button clicking traffic. Targeted readers arrive on your blog in response to SERPS (search engine page results) knowing the subject matter they are searching for will be found in your posts. Hence, targeted readers are more likely:

to become regular readers leave comments on your posts.
to backlink to your posts in posts of their own and when they do your blog will receive visitors who click the links.
to share the URL to your blog with other targeted readers in the same niche via social media and social networks.
to become subscribers.
to become guest authors on your blog

True blogging is about creating relationships; it's not about bean counting.

mikeosbornphoto on "Difference between views and visitors"

mikeosbornphoto — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:43:32 +0000

I guess it's all too easy to click the reader. If a post catches my eye then I'll visit the blog which is hopefully some valuable clicks. We all want to see traffic, so the more sources the better!

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:38:14 +0000

Yes jblz (Staff) reported a two hour delay here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/statistic-counter?replies=2#post-1097169

sherpakyle on "Difference between views and visitors"

sherpakyle — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:32:45 +0000

@timethief, the blog in question is public: http://hikingangelesforest.com/ I just learned that the visitor stats can lag a couple hours behind the view stats. Perhaps that is what I'm seeing. Thanks for your reply!

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:16:45 +0000

@sherpakyle
Please post the URL for the blog you are referring to. If the blog in question is a private blog and you are logged in and view it then every page you view results in a stat being recorded. But this is not the case when the blog visibility is public. http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/

sherpakyle on "Difference between views and visitors"

sherpakyle — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 20:07:17 +0000

I'm curious how this works. I have 28 views and 0 visitors. There were 2 search engine terms. No posts were accessed, only pages (giving instructions regarding completing a hike and photos of the hike). Could the search engine terms be people who accessed the pages via bookmarks as pages don't have tags? I had to have at least one visitor to click on the various pages--right? It's an interesting stat for me as I create more pages than posts and really want people to look at the various hikes etc as a reference guide. Looking forward to learning how this works.

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:45:01 +0000

@windwhistle
I'm with you. :)

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:44:27 +0000

oops! that was for mikeosbornphoto

@jblz

figuring out the storage is the fun part!

understood :)

windwhistle on "Difference between views and visitors"

windwhistle — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:44:08 +0000

@jblz I guess I'm wishing for all the stats available via StatCounter. Would love to see not only a visitor's path through my site but also time spent on each page, or on the blog. Time gives us a good idea if the post is actually being read.

(Don't mind me; I'm just a stat nut. I very much appreciate every single stat WP gives me. Thanks!)

timethief on "Difference between views and visitors"

timethief — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 19:43:08 +0000

I would like regular followers to click and like - I always do this rather than just hitting the button on the reader.

Likes stats are useful if and only if people clicking them are truly indicating appreciation for the content in the post. If people simply click "like" to signify to the blogger that they clicked in and read the post then the click has no value in terms of response to content.

Also note that there are like button spammers who click only for the purpose of self promotion expecting you will click back and follow them from the gravatar profile page to their site.

Be aware that likes and shares are misleading when you are talking about page view stats. Your followers and anyone with a WordPress.com blog who is logged into WordPress.com can "like" and "share" your posts in several locations such as the Reader without ever clicking into your blog and creating a page view stat. See here for what I do to compel readers to read posts on my site > http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2012/07/09/wordpress-followers-likes-and-stats