West Bay

Visitors currently online: 5

Visitors / Guests Online

The figure above represents an accurate count of the number of Visitors and Guests who are looking on the West Bay website at this moment in time (Real Time).

Website Statistics

When you read or hear about the performance of a website, its popularity is generally quoted as the number of 'Hits' that it receives.  But what does this really mean?  When a webmaster analyses a website's statistics, he or she will be presented with a number of figures.  But which should they use?  The most realistic figure or the most impressive?  Unfortunately, the most realistic figure is also the least impressive and so the whole scenario tends to be abused!

Unique Visitors

The West Bay website regularly receives over 1,000 Unique Visitors each day.  This is the accepted parameter for measuring the true popularity of a website.  This figure is generated by complying with the fact that an online visitor retrieving various pages within the website represents only one count.  This figure is also independent of the length of time that the same visitor remains on the website (i.e. does not count the same visitor more than once during their stay on the website).

Hits

As stated above, 'Hits' is a vague and misleading term that is often used to measure the popularity of a website.
'Page Hits' refers to the total number of pages accessed by all of a website's visitors over a specific length of time.  Depending on the size of a website and its interest factor, Page Hits could be anywhere between the same as and 10 times (or more) the number of Unique Visitors.
'General or Server Hits' refers to the total number of items accessed by visitors from a website.  This includes all pages accessed together with images, logos and all other individual items which make up those pages.  Depending on the type of website, this figure could be 100 times (or more) the number of Unique Visitors.
The West Bay website shows a graphical comparison between its Unique Visitors and Page Hits on the Statistics Pages.

The Hit Counter

The West Bay website does not use a hits counter.  This type of measurement is highly inaccurate and excessive.  It increments a count every time a page is retrieved or when returning to the home page by the same visitor.  This type of recording can return readings up to 10 times higher than the more accurate 'Unique Visitors' count.