When I first started tracking my blog stats, I noticed regular visits from Cary, NC. Every day she would visit (I guessed “she”), silently but diligently clicking on all my newest posts. When I was blue, her visits gave me comfort, making me feel like someone out there was always checking to see if I was ok. I loved this woman, even though she never left a comment. She was a true fan.

I didn’t guess the truth until almost a year later…

…. she’s not a fan. She’s not even human.

She’s a spider, an automatic searcher of blog content that indexes my pages.

I felt betrayed, like I had lost a friend.

Figuring out what your stats mean is a confusing process — What’s a hit? What’s a visit? Are these real human beings? Different stat programs count things in different ways. Here are a few of the terms I think I’ve figured out, though I may still be confused.

  • Hits
    The number of hits your website gets is not an accurate representation of your site’s popularity, though many sites will use that number to pretend they’re rock stars. A hit happens when a file is requested from your website. Your website may have a number of files, so one person’s visit may count for more than one hit.
  • Visitor/Visit
    You can usually assume that a visitor is an actual person who looks at your site, but some counters will include spiders and robots in this number. Visitors are counted in a given time frame, such as the number of visitors in a day. If someone comes every day, each day will count as a new visit/visitor with my stats.
  • Page View
    Each time a different page on your site is requested, it’s a page view. A visitor can (and hopefully will) look at several pages during one visit. With my stats, if a visitor comes more than once a day, the page visits will go up but not the number of visitors.
  • Bounce Rate
    Ugh. My bounce rate sucks — it’s way too high. A bounce rate is the number of people who pop into your site for a few seconds then run off without doing anything. Your site should be engaging (sticky) enough so that visitors will want to hang out and click things. Here’s more about improving your bounce rate.
  • IP Address
    I’m still confused about whether an IP address comes from your internet connection or your actual computer, and the Wikipedia entry sure doesn’t clear things up. I do know that IP addresses are how visitors are counted, and things get confusing because IP addresses can change, such that one visitor during one visit to your website may use a number of different IP addresses to access your info. That happens sometimes with the Cary, NC, Spider. (Boy do I miss her). When that spider comes to index my new pages, it can register 10-12 different IP addresses, thus making it look like I received lots of visitors.
  • Spiders and Robots
    You wouldn’t believe how many of these automated web indexers visit my site every day. I finally stopped keeping track. I sure as heck don’t know what they do with the info either, since the only search engines that get people to my blog are Google (most popular by far), Yahoo, MSN and Microsoft Windows Live.
  • Feeds
    Again, this can be counted in a number of different ways. This number represents the number of RSS feeders that pull from your site, updating a dynamic content reader … somewhere. Many of the feeds that are on my StatPress page in WordPress are from automatic feed readers, not real people. I use FeedBurner to see how many human beings have signed up to keep track of my blog. But just because your site appears in a reader doesn’t mean anyone’s looking at it. In FeedBurner, they distinguish between the number of human readers that pulled your latest info and the number of people who actually were interested enough to click to your site. There’s usually quite a discrepancy. Hint: the posts that have top 5 lists or the like in the title get many more clicks.

PS — You don’t have to pay for stats. Google Analytics, FeedBurner and StatPress are all free.

Did I get any wrong? Miss some important terms? Chime in!