Title: wordpress.com stats plugin: visits = visitors?
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# wordpress.com stats plugin: visits = visitors?

 *  [Marc Tönsing](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marcdk/)
 * (@marcdk)
 * [17 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-plugin-visits-visitors/)
 * Simple question but maybe difficult to answer: Are the “views” in the wordpress.
   com stats plugin visits or visitors? Can one visitor generate more then one visit
   of a single article? In which timeframe?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

 *  [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/)
 * (@esmi)
 * [17 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-plugin-visits-visitors/#post-1056097)
 * I don’t have the specifics for the wp.com stats plugin but…
 * > Can one visitor generate more then one visit of a single article?
 * Yes. But then “1 visitor” may actually be a number of different people who are
   using the same machine or just the same local ISP. All that any stats package
   can ever identify is a unique IP. If everyone used fixed IPs, things would be
   a lot simpler but many ISPs assign dynamic IPs with the same address being rotated
   amongst their online users.
 * > In which timeframe?
 * Unique visits should normally be at least 30 mins apart. This to rule out any
   skewing due to multiple page refreshes or someone simply walking away for 5 mins
   to make a cup of coffee. But, personally, I’d still be wary of associating 1 
   unique visit with 1 unique visitor. At best, stats really only give a broad indication
   of site traffic and shouldn’t be taken too literally.
 * After all, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. 🙂
 *  Thread Starter [Marc Tönsing](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marcdk/)
 * (@marcdk)
 * [17 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-plugin-visits-visitors/#post-1056148)
 * > After all, there are lies, damn lies and statistics. 🙂
 * =) Ok, thank you. But this is THE official wordpress stats plugin powered by 
   wordpress.com Why are these things not documented somewhere? At least if “view”
   means really a view or a visitor.
 * Does someone has specific information about this?
 *  [Andy Skelton](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy/)
 * (@andy)
 * [17 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-plugin-visits-visitors/#post-1056187)
 * The WordPress.com Stats plugin aims to be as useful as possible while remaining
   as simple as possible (and free) so we decided not to count visits or visitors.
   MarkDK, it says “views” so it means “views” and not something else. I see no 
   reason for confusing it with “visits”. If you can show me where the plugin gave
   you the idea that “views” might mean “visits” I’ll fix it.
 * If you look closely, there is no such real thing as a view or a visit or a visitor
   in the data we record. These are all made-up terms we use to describe technical
   events as though they were the real human events which they are designed represent.
   To be technically accurate, the plugin would say “script executions” instead 
   of “views”, but that would not satisfy most users.
 * Basically, a view is counted when a browser displays a page and executes a script
   embedded in the page. There are failures, exceptions, and duplicates. There are
   many subtle technical factors that result in a thing being counted or not and
   the factors change with the internet ecosystem. I will not attempt to explain
   them further. If you are interested, you should learn the ins and outs of various
   browsers and read the stats javascript code.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

The topic ‘wordpress.com stats plugin: visits = visitors?’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [Stats](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/stats/)
 * [views](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/views/)
 * [wordpress.com](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/wordpress-com/)

 * 3 replies
 * 3 participants
 * Last reply from: [Andy Skelton](https://wordpress.org/support/users/andy/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wordpresscom-stats-plugin-visits-visitors/#post-1056187)
 * Status: not resolved

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