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I like that the number of visitors to the blog has been added to the stats page, but I am curious as to what the difference between the two are? What is the definition of a view and a visitor? I guess I preseumed they were the same thing however, so far today I have had 85 views, but only 42 visitors.
The blog I need help with is scopophiliamovieblog.com.
I have the same question.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/#viewsvisitors
Stay tuned for more information.
Suppose I am a visitor to your blog and I click into three pages on your blog thereby creating 3 page views. That answers your question. There have been 42 visitors who viewed 85 pages on your blog.
Here's more to consider. Did you know 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
I like the new difference. I often few many individual posts on the same blog and this clarifies things better for me.
WordPress.com stats are page view stats and always have been page view stats. The only difference is the fact that the numbers of visitors creating the page views are now being reported.
Thank you timethief for your answer. It was concise and helpful.
You're welcome. Best wishes with your blog.
Awesome addition to the stats. Thanks.
Thanks, tt. And WP. I've always wondered if, and hoped that, my visitors were viewing more than one post. Apparently a lot of them are. I always hope visitors will explore my blog a bit after reading the post that first attracted them.
It would be interesting to know which post(s) a visitor goes to after reading the first one, so we could tell if s/he is following internal links to related posts.
BTW, how long does a visitor have to stay on a post/blog to be counted as a discrete visit? And could WP report the length (elapsed time) of the visits (like on StatCounter), so we'd know if the visitor is actually staying to read something?
windwhistle: That's a good suggestion about letting you see your visitors' path while on your site.
A visitor is counted when we see a user or browser for the first time in a given period (day, week, month). While there's no threshold for time on site, visitors must pass spam checks to be counted (the same with views).
@jblz
windwhistle: That's a good suggestion about letting you see your visitors' path while on your site.
I've been using sitemeter and started using it before WordPress.com stats were implemented. I'd love to have this information included in my WordPress.com stats as well.
I'm wondering what is considered more importatnt, or better. The number of visitors, or the amount of page views. For instance a blog may get a modest number of visitors, but if those visitors spend a lot of time on the blog and view alot of different posts then I would presume that it would be considered a interesting and good quality blog nonetheless, correct?
My first impression is that visitor numbers are quite depressing, but then it's evident that many visitors are exploring the site and not just clicking once and going away.
I would like regular followers to click and like - I always do this rather than just hitting the button on the reader.
An interesting addition - thanks for the enriched information.
@wintri
I'm wondering what is considered more importatnt, or better.
What you consider to be important is what's important to you. What's important from a search engine traffic point of view is the number of page views.
@wintri: Both metrics are important, in my opinion. But, every site is different. It's never a bad thing to increase your readership, but engagement is a driving factor as well :)
Check out our announcement post which touches on the subject:
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/unique-visitors/
@timethief - thanks :) figuring out the storage is the fun part!
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
@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!)
oops! that was for mikeosbornphoto
@jblz
figuring out the storage is the fun part!
understood :)
@windwhistle
I'm with you. :)
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.
@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/
@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!
Yes jblz (Staff) reported a two hour delay here http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/statistic-counter?replies=2#post-1097169
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!
@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:
True blogging is about creating relationships; it's not about bean counting.
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 :)
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!
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
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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.
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
This topic has been closed to new replies.
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