Marketing Terms

Unique Visitors

Definition

Individuals who have visited a Web site (or network) at least once in a fixed time frame, typically a 30 day period.

Information

Most measurements of unique visitors are estimates.

Sites often calculate unique visitors based on the IP address information found in the log files, and sometimes through cookies. However, many factors may skew the results.

Traffic rating companies typically calculate unique visitors by monitoring actual usage of a group of volunteers, then applying the results to to the Internet population. Results fluctuate considerably for small sites due to their small sample sizes.

see also: Digital Marketing Tools

Related Terms

Web site traffic

view all terms in the Online Advertising glossary or all terms in the Digital Marketing glossary

Articles

Lies, Damned Lies, and Unique Visitors
E-Commerce Times (June 21, 2000)