hit counter

I have enabled the web site hit counter. It is working. I checked it today and said 38 unique visitors since 2014-12-03.
What does this mean?
(1) Visitors that are not members. Good information!
(2) All visitors are counted. A member will count one hit per visit. If the visitor works in the same workplace as a member, it is not distinguishable from a member. If there were 38 visitors to my web site inn 16 days , that would be a normal average, or about 2 hits per day. Or just usage activity by members.

I just want to know what to make of the counter hits.

Thank you,

Inaki A.

Everyone that visits your website, members included, has an IP address associated with their computer. The system simply detects the IP address, and stores a running list of ip addresses and the number of times it has detected each ip address since the indicated date.

The number of unique ip addresses is a rough indication of the number of unique visitors to the website. Multiple visits by the same ip address are not included in the count. (Although I could do total visits as an alternative.)

I say rough since companies sometimes show the same ip address to the outside world regardless of who inside the company is accessing the internet. That is why we do not recommend using the hit counter for company clubs.

My hit counter went down suddenly from 28 accrued hits since 2014-12-3 to 2 accrued hits today. Does this mean repeat hits are filtered out? or something else like becoming unreliable?

The first thing that comes to mind is that someone reset the hit counter. It's probably not all that hard to do it without meaning to.

You can tell if it has been reset if the date after the "Since" is different.

That date always will reflect when the count started (or when it was reset).

Thank Jane and Steve,

I did not reset the hit bottom or change the "since" date, actually the since date has not changed. Perhaps another officer did. It is all right. Right now the counter hits were 9. So you two and 5 other IPs have visited our web site since I posted the topic, 18 hours ago, when there were 2 hits. It is all right. As long as members like the homepage and visitors are glad to see our pictures in it, it is just fine.

Inaki A.