SummitPost.org

I don't think SP counts hits from the IP address that created the object, regardless if you are logged in or not. In other words, it doesn't count when you view your own objects.

Alpinist - good point. I logged in with a phone to check my own objects. I don't think I used that phone to log in to SP before. But, if I am logged out and click on other people's objects, the hit counter does not increase. At this time, SP doesn't count hits from non-members either. I just logged out and clicked on one of your pages and no hits were added. But then I signed in, and added hits.

If somebody not a member of SP does a Google search for a mountain and they go to Summitpost, their hits don't count. Thousands of hits to thousands of pages go unrecorded. We are a very popular site, but no longer track outside hits, which appear to represent 75% to 90% of traffic to Summitpost depending on the page. For more popular pages, I think it is closer to 90% or more is non-members. Some of the more obscure pages, closer to 75%.

So it would mean that if a page shows a few thousand hits, all hits were generated by logged SPers??? That’s really misrepresenting the popularity of a page and therefore its “value”, especially if some pages (articles) are written for general public. In other words, if an author of the page sees insufficient nr of hits, he/she may be discouraged to write another one. Hits = reword/satisfaction.

I think this should be fixed for benefits of SPers who participate in creating pages here. How about, for instance, using Ajax and JS window.onload to connect to the database (this should be cache independent)?

Personally, I would like to see all the hits counted. I have not created many pages, but I like to see if they are being looked at or not, especially for the more obscure mountains.

Matt,

Are you saying you won't count page hits anymore at all, even from within SP? I think I understand your point that the Cache works better, and traffic is strong. As long as the advertisers don't care about hits, then neither should you. I just want to promote SP and send more traffic to the site.

One question is this - if advertisers don't use hit counters, then how do they measure site traffic to know it is a good investment to advertise on Summitpost?

bump

Matt,

It all depends on advertisers. Do advertisers care about hits? Is there another way they measure traffic to determine if Summitpost is a popular site?

Please don't remove the hit counter. At least SP members logged on count some hits.

Does this affect Google search results? If it does, then I think it matters.

Thanks Matt,

So essentially what I think you are saying it that the era of actual page hits being counted is over? I.E. Summitpost pages will not be tracking hits from people who are not logged on to Summitpost for the foreseeable future. If that is the case, I understand and I will refrain from requesting that hits be counted and end this forum.

So then visitor hits are not actually decreasing? That's good to know.

Josh,

I think Summitpost is being more popular. I know that when I was tracking hits over the past few years, my more popular pages were surging in hits. More than that though, Summitpost is resource for high percentage of hikers out here in Reno/Tahoe/Sacramento. Meet up groups help this, because often Summitpost pages are referenced on Meet Up sites - (another place where there are a lot of uncounted hits).

I had a dinky page for a minor summit in the middle of Reno that has gotten dozens of hits each month despite being just a small afternoon walk: http://www.summitpost.org/point-4903-reno-nevada/491819

A friend of mine even asked about hiking it to me the other day!

Don't underestimate the great success of this website!