Visits occur when some remote site makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (default is 30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats. For example, if a user visits your site at 1:00 pm, and then returns at 3:00 pm, two visits would be registered. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remote sites that link to graphic and other non-page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.

Note: In the ‘Top Sites’ table, the visits total should be discounted on ‘Grouped’ records, and thought of as the “Minimum number of visits” that came from that grouping instead.