Impressions Vs. Pageviews
Impressions and page views are forms of measuring how many people visit websites and view advertising; they are used to help determine advertising rates. A page view is a straightforward way of measuring the number of pages accessed by a website visitor, while impressions can vary greatly depending on the page's content.
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Definitions
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In Internet terminology, a page view is defined as a single Web page that is viewed by a website visitor. For instance, if you access a company’s home page, this is one page view. If you follow the company’s “About Us” link and then follow its “Contact Us” link, two more page views have occurred. An advertisement’s appearance on a Web page is referred to as an impression. For example, if you access an entertainment magazine’s website and see four ads on its home page, the home page has four impressions.
Uses
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Website owners and advertisers use impressions data to determine how many times ads are viewed and to set advertising rates. Page views are used in the same manner. Impressions and page views are tracked by the website’s server; advertising based on this data is sold on a cost-per-thousand basis. Page views and impressions are but two of the four website traffic tracking elements used to determine a website’s traffic.
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Hits and Unique Visitors
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Hits are the oldest method used to determine a website’s traffic. A hit on a website refers to the amount of files loaded during the website visit. For instance, if you visit the entertainment magazine’s home page, which has 10 pictures, your single-page visit accounts for 10 hits. Clear your computer’s cache and reload the page equals another 10 hits. Although hits are part of the process used to determine website traffic, they are generally looked at as the least important piece of data for determining advertising rates. Unique visitors, on the other hand, are key ingredients in website traffic data and are measured by the amount of different visitors that visit a website. Unique visitor data is determined by a visitor’s Internet provider address.
Considerations
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Of the three main website traffic data categories, unique visitors and page views provide advertisers with a truer look at the website's traffic before deciding to purchase advertising. Impressions data can be misleading. For example, tracking a Web page’s impressions assumes the visitor actually saw the ads on the website. If the visitor did not scroll through the entire page or was browsing without graphics, all of the page’s impressions may not have been viewed.
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References
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