What's with the Hits? Are they real?

I have heard many web sites declare that they have "X hundred-thousand hits each day" and though I have no reason not to believe them, I do wonder what they mean by "hits."

Do they consider each page a visitor views a "hit?" This way, one visitor can rack up maybe a dozen "hits" in one visit. That doesn't sound right, and we don't do that here at True America.

Do they consider each file a person opens to be a "hit?" This way, every photo and graphic image on every page would count as one "hit." If this were the case with True America, then every time you opened the main page, you would trip nearly 2 dozen hits! A single visit to the site, pulling up 4 or 5 pages could count as over 100 hits! That isn't right, and we don't do that.

Our hit counter counts you once when you visit only the main page of our site. If you return to it during the same visit, it doesn't count you again. In fact, many people visit the site through a "back door" link directly to an article, and our hit counter doesn't count them. We have as honest and true a hit counter as you can get. Our goal is to have 100,000 visits before January 1, 2000. Think we'll make it?

Return to our
MAIN page