Hit or Page Hit is the retrieval of any items related to a web page from the web server. A single web page can have several items, images, cascading style sheets, scripts etc., that all count as hits. For example, when a visitor calls up a web page with six images that counts as at least seven hits; one for each of the images and one for the page itself (plus possibly more if there are style sheets or scripts in the programming). There is a common misconception that a ‘hit” and a page view or even a site visit are the same thing, but clearly they’re not.

When someone brags about getting a certain number of hits on his/her site, that number is really quite meaningless. The actual number of visitors to the site might be a small fraction of the hits. Page views
and visits are a far better indicator of web traffic than page hits.