Web page hits, or user hits, are a slightly outdated way of counting the traffic that uses a website. The term “hit” to mean “visit” was common in the early days of the internet, and several websites had rudimentary hit plug-ins that counted the number of webpage visits that the website encountered.
The problem with “hits” as a measure of traffic is that it’s unreliable. It cannot tell webmasters an accurate measure of the number of individual web users visiting the page, because it’s instead a counter of the hit requests for a file – such as a webpage, an image, or Javascript – on the web server. As such, one visit to a website could generate multiple hits.
Modern Metrics
To replace the early hit counter, modern websites now have a wide range of data on their traffic, often provided in the backend via web hosts and platforms such as WordPress and Wix. Today’s metrics include page views, unique visitors, and unique sessions, so that the data is more granular, and SEO or webpage optimisation experts know how to further improve their websites.
Beyond these metrics, many web analysis services are now also able to tell webmasters where their visitors came from – such as the percentage of users who arrived on their website via social media, via search engines, or via a direct link from another site.
