Believe it or not many business owners really don't know the difference between a unique visit to a website and a page view.
This is especially important if the website is a online directory and they are trying to get you to advertise on their site by boasting page views over unique visits.
Here's the lowdown in a nut shell. The reason why is you will of course always have more page views then unique visits because when you visit a site you usually click on another link and hence, another page view. Make sense?
So then to say you have a million page views just sounds better then saying you had 250,000 unique visitors.
So what's in a page view and should you care?
Page Views to A Website,
What Does This Really Mean?
Now I am not necessarily knocking page views and of course the more page views the better but there's a dirty little secret these online directories wouldn't dare tell you but I have no problem letting this little secret out of the bag.
Lets say you are a consumer and you are looking for a business online. Lets say a plumber in Victorville. So you go to one of these large online directories that back in the day were the big dogs in the phone book business and now find themselves struggling to stay afloat and are now trying to transition their same sleazy high priced business practices to the internet.
So they now have an online yellow pages and in most cases are now charging more for this then they did for the books!
Try doing a Google search for High Desert Yellow Pages and see what pops up and then search for a service and keep track of your page views.
So anyway you are doing an online search for this plumber and you type in whatever service you use and bam! The home page of the directory pops up.
So first you found the directory, well that's considered a visit and a page view and depending on the last time you were there could be considered a unique visit. This is because each website has a time frame that basically says that if you haven't been back to their site in a day or 2 or 3 or whatever their time frame is, they consider you a unique visit. Even though you have been on their site before. So really its not unique at all. But it sounds good so they say it.
Custom Search
So now you type in "plumbers victorville ca" and you find the list of out of the area plumbers. This is what is considered the second page view. Remember, just finding the directory is the first page view. So now you have 2.
So since you didn't see any 760 area codes you click on a link that might say "advanced search" well there's another page view and then you click something that might say "search by distance" and bam, another page view! You finally are starting to see some local area codes but then the phone number isn't visible unless you click the phone number link. WOW! Another click and now you are up to 5 page views. You click on a few of those and you can easily get up to 10 to 20 page views in one visit. Most online directories are set up that way and that's not by accident. They can boast page views over visits or visa versa, whatever is more convenient for them. Remember, its sales and its not what they tell you, its what they don't tell you. So now you can see that what started out as a visit, or a "unique" turns out to be 10 pageviews. If these sites would make it easier to find what you are looking for, trust me when I say the page views would drop! But tha'ts not what they want now is it?
The High Desert Yellow Pages website you happen to be on doesn't work that way. You find the category or land on the page you are looking for and the telephone number and any other info is all right there. Sure you might click on a website link or more info page if available but that's it. We want to make it simple for you to find what you are looking for. We hope its working!
You can read more business tips and advice on www.highdesertyellowpages.com.
