New to the community? Start here

Pageview query on hosting

These two screenshots are from the same website. One from the WPMU dashboard and one from WordPress dashboard… Could you explain why they are so wildly different?

https://cdn.livechat-static.com/api/file/v2/lc/att-old/8801096/096e336a4fb04cb30ca3f8dcd3829a57/WPMUPV1.JPG

https://cdn.livechat-static.com/api/file/v2/lc/att-old/8801096/dc740688ebe772ea8c8c17e2b22a122d/WPMUPV2.JPG

Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:48:52
  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jenks

    I hope you’re well today and thank you for your question!

    These graphs are showing two different metrics. The one with bigger numbers is just page views. A page view is each and every load of any page of your site regardless whether it’s the same visitor or another one, it also includes any reloads etc. It might also include some – depending on how “successful” filtering was – bots visits.

    The other one is showing visits and unique visits. There’s a difference between that in that sense that a visitor can view more than one page or can reload it. There’s also a difference between visit and unique visit – as visit is “every single browser session”.

    For example: I visit your site, visit 3 pages on it, close browser window, open it again and visit your site again opening just one page there but reloading it one time too; that would count as:

    1 visit + 3 page views + 1 visit + 2 page views = 2 visits + 5 pageviews.

    But I did it all in a short period of time so it actually makes:

    – 5 page views

    – 2 visits

    – 1 unique visit.

    Page Views can escalate very quickly as it’s pretty much unfiltered, raw number of how many times any page of the site was rendered while views and unique views are much more “strict”.

    Kind regards,

    Adam

  • Jenks
    • Design Lord, Child of Thor

    Hi Adam,

    I am aware of the difference, but the figures just do not add up.

    Google suggests 15 pageviews, but on the same day the WPMU hosting dashboard suggests almost 3,000 pageviews.

    The website only has just over 40 pages on it. The WPMU statistics dashboard (in WordPress) says 11 unique visits on this day in question (15 January).

    11 visits, with 40 pages, does not equate to 3,000 pageviews. I’m just confused and am certain that the website has not had that many pageviews. Google Analytics suggests 5 pageviews on this day.

    Ben

  • Adam
    • Support Gorilla

    Hello Jenks Julian

    I understand that this might be confusing and I can tell that I’m also seeing some “unexpectedly high numbers” for some of my test sites that are for sure not being visited that much.

    However, comparing Google Analytics and “server stats” (which is what we are showing) is actually comparing two different things. What I mentioned in my first post is important but there’s more into it. I’m sorry, I should have explained that previously as well:

    Analytics services will not track bots or people who block it or people with JS turned off. The pageviews stat on our hosting – which are server stats, based on native server access logs – tracks every request that could add load to the server. For many small sites 90% of traffic is bots. That’s something that you can actually check by yourself by checking the Access Log for the site in “Activity Logs” section of the hosting panel. You’ll see there each and every attempt of loading/accessing the site so that should give you an idea of what made these numbers add-up to that amount.

    Best regards,

    Adam