Hit
A hit refers to a single file request on a server. This may
be a request for a html file, image or other
multimedia file. The number of hits used to be a standard measure for the
success of a website in the early days of the Internet. However, counting the
number of hits will lead to a distorted image. Web sites usually consist of a
large number of files, such as text and images. When counting the number of
hits, the request for the main page as well as the requests for each image is
counted separately. Thus, a single page request generates a large number of
hits. The exact number depends, among other things, on the number of images on
the page. Thus, the use of hits as a measurement usually vastly exaggerates the
success of a page.
Today, it is more common to quote the number of page views,
which is a more accurate measure than hits. Alternatively, the number of
visitors could be used as a measure. We could go a step further and only count
unique visitors. Then a visitor who visits a site twice within a 24 hour period
would only be counted once. Using the number of hits as a measure of success
has really passed the use by date.
