What are unique visitors?

Unique visitors is an estimate of how many different people visited your website in a period. Example: one person opens five pages in a day – that is five pageviews but one unique visitor. PureMetrix counts visitors per day, without cookies.

Definition

Unique visitors roughly answer "how many people came?" Pageviews answer "how many pages were viewed?" Visits answer "how many times did people come by?"

Daily visitors in PureMetrix

When a pageview arrives, PureMetrix creates a hash (a one-way checksum) from a daily changing random value, the IP address, the browser details and the website address. Nothing is stored on the visitor's device – no cookies, no local storage. The random value changes every 24 hours and is deleted after 48 hours, so visitors cannot be linked across days – not even by PureMetrix.

Do not expect to recognise the same person across devices. A phone and a laptop count as two visitors, which is normal for cookie-free analytics.

Why totals differ from GA4

Cookies, Google's Consent Mode, estimated (modelled) data and ad blockers all change Google's totals. PureMetrix works without cookies and counts a different set of visitors. Compare trends, not exact numbers. More: why numbers differ.

Practical use

Use unique visitors to see your reach. Use goals for business results. If visitors go up but goals stay flat, you reached more people but did not convince them.

When many people share one internet connection, for example in an office, they may be counted as one visitor on a given day. Look at trends over several weeks and at goals when a single day looks odd.

Why a single day can mislead

Shared internet connections (office networks, mobile carriers) can merge several people into one visitor. The opposite happens too: someone who switches from Wi-Fi to mobile data may be counted twice. Prefer trends over several weeks and goal completions when one Tuesday looks odd. By design, PureMetrix starts a fresh count every day, because the daily random value changes.