Tried to test something to figure out number of users....

[FreeLantzDesigns]

I tried a "test" yesterday and set up a new statcounter account, so that I have two...

I put the first one (my "real" one) on all of my pages, so it logs users on all pages of my site.

My second one is ONLY placed on the default.html page of my site. I thought this would be helpful in trying to figure out some of the "math" with the numbers of users, because people wouldn't roll off the log so quickly.

Right now, I am seeing a strange discrepancy... the number of users today doesn't match between the two statcounter projects. On the "default only" project, I have had 9 unique visitors today. On the other project, I have had 17. Twho users on the "real" project did come in through another page (not default) so that accounts for two. What about the other 6?

On the other side of the strangeness, the last three users on the default page only project are from St. Louis, Virginia, and Washington. All three of those SHOULD be logged on the "real" project... However, St. Louis is missing. What would explain that?

Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this, but it's weird that things don't match up... Am I just missing something?

Thanks!

[FreeLantzDesigns]

ok.. more weird info... the St. Louis visitor isn't in the "recent visitor activity" part, but he/she IS in the "recent pageload activity"

Is there any reason a user would not show up in one part but would show up in the other?

[webado]

Go by the IP address rather than other details.

At a given moment in time the Recent Visitor Activity and Recent Pageloads should contain the same exact IP addresses, though not in the same order and not the same presentation. It's possible, though I cannot confirm it now, that a visitor with a private IP address may not show up in the Recent Visitor Activity.

[FreeLantzDesigns]

Yeah I am looking at the IP addresses - but they still don't match up. The IP address from the St. Louis person is NOT in my recent visitor activity, but is in the recent pageload activity.

[FreeLantzDesigns]

webmaster - are you around? I'd love to see your feedback on this.

Right now, I am having the issue again only in reverse... if I look at recent visitor activity, more users show up there than in the recent pageload activity - yes, I am comparing IP addresses...

What gives?

[FreeLantzDesigns]

jeez... now today, in both of my "projects" they say 5 unique visitors in the summary, but when I look at the visitor activity, there are 6 unique visitors

These numbers just don't add up! :(

[webado]

jeez... now today, in both of my "projects" they say 5 unique visitors in the summary, but when I look at the visitor activity, there are 6 unique visitors

These numbers just don't add up! :(
Are the unique visitors in the Recent vistor activity all for today? Could one of them have been for yesterday?

Don't forget the summary is a cumulative number but the individual stats are based on teh contents of the log, which is 100 hits for the free account.

If your day's total hits is over 100 then the numbers in the summary will be bigger than what you find in the individual stats.

But if your site got less than 100 hits during the day, you will find yesterday's visits in the individual stats, therefore some unique visitors may be from before and therefore are not included in the day's count in the summary.

[FreeLantzDesigns]

yes, they're for today. I am looking at the dates. I also know that some users will roll off. However, I'm talking about 5 hits on my little bitty site today. Each with 2 to 6 page loads. They are not swamping my 100 limit on the log file.

I compare today's unique visitors, with today's users in the the visitor activity, with today's pageload activity, and they just don't add up.

[webado]

Unique does not mean new. It means distinct from one another, not the same visitors hitting x times.

Since it does not mean new, they may have been around the day before.

I'm sure if you took the time to look at everything carefully you will understand what the numbers actually mean. It's hard to explain without a really concrete example to tie it to.

[FreeLantzDesigns]

Right, but if there were 5 unique visitors on March 10, then I would expect to see 5 different IP addresses in the visitor activity for March 10, and I would expect to find visitor paths for 5 different IP addresses as well.

I don't see how that is difficult - unless I'm REALLY missing something.

SUMMARY
Thursday 10th March 2005
page Loads 26
Unique visitors 5
New visitors 5
Returning visitors 0

RECENT VISITOR ACTIVITY - I just copied and pasted here so it looks ugly, but so you can see that I'm not making this up.

VISITOR 1:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 2
10th March 2005 04:28:57 PM
5 seconds
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Washington, Seattle, United States
c-24-19-252-68.client.comcast.net (24.19.252.68)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Invitations.html
No referring link

VISITOR 2:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 4
10th March 2005 04:04:38 PM
1 min 33 secs
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Oregon, Beaverton, United States
dialup-4.242.123.88.Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.242.123.88)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Links.html
No referring link

VISITOR 3:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 2
10th March 2005 01:58:46 PM
8 seconds
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Washington, Seattle, United States
h-66-167-137-130.sttnwaho.dynamic.covad.net (66.167.137.130)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Invitations.html
No referring link


VISITOR 4:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 8
10th March 2005 12:08:49 PM
2 mins 24 secs
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Oregon, Gresham, United States
dialup-4.242.63.252.Dial1.Seattle1.Level3.net (4.242.63.252)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Invitations.html
No referring link


VISITOR 5:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 4
10th March 2005 07:24:15 AM
54 seconds
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Washington, Bellevue, United States
c-24-16-120-191.client.comcast.net (24.16.120.191)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Invitations.html
No referring link


VISITOR 6:
Number of Entries:
Entry Page Time:
Visit Length:
Browser
OS
Resolution 6
10th March 2005 06:42:41 AM
1 min 54 secs
MSIE 6.0
Windows XP
1024x768 Returning Visits:
Location:
Hostname:
Entry Page:
Exit Page:
Referring URL: 0
Washington, Tacoma, United States
c-24-17-145-237.client.comcast.net (24.17.145.237)
www.freelantzdesigns.com/
www.freelantzdesigns.com/Contact.html
No referring link

[FreeLantzDesigns]

please please please... can someone help me?

This is driving me crazy. Today it says I have 19 unique visitors all of whom are new.... However, in the recent visitor activity there are only 5 or 6 visitors (by IP address, location, anything you want to look at)... WHERE ARE MY VISITORS?

This is crazy.

[Applecrosswc]

I have the same problem. I might have 20 unique visitors for the day in the summary but in the recent visitor activity it says only 9 people have visited my site on that date. I really dont get it.

[webado]

Check the Recent pageloads. Statcounter logs hits. Unique visitors are based on cookies. if the visitor does not have a cookie, it's considered a new one.

Obviously all those whose browsers reject cookies (or at least 3rd aprty cookies) will always be cosndiered new unique at every pageload.

[Applecrosswc]

Check the Recent pageloads. Statcounter logs hits. Unique visitors are based on cookies. if the visitor does not have a cookie, it's considered a new one.

Obviously all those whose browsers reject cookies (or at least 3rd aprty cookies) will always be cosndiered new unique at every pageload.

Thanks for the reply. There are a lot of pageloads from the same IP so I guess I can conclude that some of these people who have cookies disabled are refreshing my page a few times. This adds to the unique visitors but no new person shows up in the recent visitor activity. Is this correct?

So this means its hard to keep track of how many unique visits you have in a day if people are fond of refreshing your page? It appears that someone at uni keeps refreshing my page every hour or so, so this could be the explanation as to why the unique visit count goes up but the recent visitor activity thing doesn't add a new visitor's details.

[webado]

As it happens an awful lots of people's computers are set up to reject cookies or third party cookies. Therefore the unique visitor count is merely an indication, not an absolute.

The visitors you see in detailed stats are based on the Ip address, but only concerns the hits currently in your log. The summary stats are accumulated on the fly (but based on cookies as no other means are possible).

If a visitor has cookies properly enabled, regardless of their IP address they'll be recognized as return visitor later.

[Applecrosswc]

As it happens an awful lots of people's computers are set up to reject cookies or third party cookies. Therefore the unique visitor count is merely an indication, not an absolute.

The visitors you see in detailed stats are based on the Ip address, but only concerns the hits currently in your log. The summary stats are accumulated on the fly (but based on cookies as no other means are possible).

If a visitor has cookies properly enabled, regardless of their IP address they'll be recognized as return visitor later.

Thanks for your help but I am still having a bit of trouble understanding :?

So was what I said above correct? If someone who doesn't have cookies enabled constantly refreshes your site then your unique visitor stats will be out of whack?

[webado]

With no cookies, that visitor will be counted in the summary stats as a new unique visitor at every pageload, so yes, you are right.

The total pageload count is not affected.

[Applecrosswc]

With no cookies, that visitor will be counted in the summary stats as a new unique visitor at every pageload, so yes, you are right.

The total pageload count is not affected.

But if someone sits there hitting refresh it is going to keep increasing your pagecount because I just gave it a shot myself. Therefore pagecount isn't really an accurate measure if people refresh the page a lot. Is that correct?

[webado]

Every time the page loads in the browser, no matter how, that registers a hit.

The counter counts hits. Everything else is derived from information gathered while registering the hit.