Hit Counts v User Sessions

Hello All,

I have recently been confronted with an interesting conversation concerning user sessions and hit counts. A friend at a local web design company has stated that they use the hits from the analyzers as the guideline for collecting data and then use these statistics for prospective new clients. I was perplexed by this because from my view, if you have one person viewing the website and ten images on the page, you receive ten hits. However, the user sessions will allow you to see the unique IP addresses that individuals come from and give you a better feel for how many people have visited the site. When I explained this to her and asked why they use hit counts and not user sessions she replied that she didn't know but that the majority of all web design companies use these numbers instead of user session. This I was also perplexed by, because I knew of some companies in the past that had used this method but have since gone to using user sessions instead due to the varying degree!
 of results. My question for all you (after this huge rambling) is-- do the majority of web companies use hit counts or do they use user sessions?

Thanks in Advance,
Joe Keilholz

Finally...The Web Your Way.
http://www.thedepot.com

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