Unique Visitors

What's the difference

[jsnow]

A complete novice question but what is the difference between visitors and unique visitors. I'm pretty sure I know what it is but thought I would ask!

[karmov]

Usually, if there is a difference, it's in repeat visitors. For example if a person visits your site three times a week, they can count as 3 visitors, but only 1 unique visitor.

There is a bit of vagueness with the word visitor being used twice. I usually see it referred to as visits vs unique visitors.

If I've misread the question, please let me know and I'll try another answer :)

[jsnow]

I did think it was to do with repeat visitors but wasn't sure. The reason I asked is because there is quite a growing difference between the two on our stats program. We now recieve around 3,800 Unique visitors a day but nearly 6,000 visitors

[jetboy_70]

For example if a person visits your site three times a week, they can count as 3 visitors, but only 1 unique visitor

Unless you're looking at daily stats, it which case they'll count three times, assuming the visits were on different days.

That's right, the same traffic can give different results based upon how you choose to measure it.

[Receptional]

We now recieve around 3,800 Unique visitors a day but nearly 6,000 visitors

If you have a community based site that would not be unraesonable, as people can come back more than once in a day. Some stats package call a visitor session a new one after just 15 minutes of inactivity. This would make the figures skewed for some sites.

It is also POSSIBLE that Unique, in your stats means all time unique.