| Hit |
Any connection to an Internet site, including inline image requests and errors. |
| Request |
A hit that successfully retrieves content. Requests don’t include inline image, ad view, or ad click requests or errors. Request counts are conservative because browsers and many Internet gateways intercept some requests before reaching the server, and these cached requests are never logged. |
| Visit |
A series of consecutive requests from a user to an Internet site. If your log data includes referrer data, then new visits begin with referring links external to your Internet site. Regardless of whether or not you have referrer data, if a user doesn’t make a request for a certain period of time, the previous series of requests is considered a completed visit. |
| User |
Anyone who visits the site at least once. If your log data contains persistent cookie data, the software uses this data to recognize unique users. If no cookie data is available, the software uses a registered username to recognize users. If no registration information is available, the software uses as a last resort, users’ Internet hostnames. Many organizations use Internet gateways, which mask the real Internet hostnames, so user counts may be conservative for those users determined through their Internet hostnames. |
| Organization |
A commercial, academic, nonprofit, government, or military entity that connects users to the Internet, identified by an entity’s Internet domains. Microsoft Usage Analyst groups together all domains registered to the same organization as one organization. If a domain is unavailable in the database, one Internet domain is used to identify one organization. |
| Request duration |
The time between two consecutive requests within the same visit. Microsoft Usage Analyst assigns the last request of a visit a request duration of 0 seconds because its actual duration can’t be determined. |
| Visit duration |
The time between the first and last request of a visit. This time doesn’t include how long users viewed the last request of a visit. |
| Ad view |
A hit that successfully retrieves advertiser content. Ad view counts are conservative because browser software and many Internet gateways intercept some requests before reaching the server, and these cached requests are never logged. |
| Ad click |
The number of requests caused by the user "clicking" on advertising content. Typically, users are directed to the advertiser's site after the ad click. |
| Ad yield |
The percentage of ad views that resulted in an ad click. |
| Geography |
The continent, country, region, state, city, and Zip code are based on an organization's Internet domain registration. Only Internet domains found within the Microsoft Internet database are included within region, state, city, and Zip code analyses. Each Internet domain is associated with only one Zip code, so all users from a domain used in multiple locations are considered to be at one location. |
