Different people have different interpretations between the words "hits," "visitors," and "uniques"
A counter defines a hit to a page each time that page is loaded.
A webalizer "visitor" would be the same thing as a counter "hit".
A thread view on GFY that only has 1 page would be the same as 1 hit.
Make sense so far?
Webalizer defines a "hit" as each time a file is attempted to be accessed. In technical terms, if you load a gallery page with 2 banners and 15 thumbs, then this would be 18 hits for that 1 visitor to the gallery (and this is also assuming the visitor does not click any thumbails to access to full size pic)
Here's a sample webalizer snapshot from one of my domains.
Notice the difference between average daily hits and average daily visitors. It's a huge difference.
A unique can be definited as a visitor accessing your site through an IP that no other visitor uses. If 4 roomates share a single connection through a router and they all visit thehun.net, then this would be 1 unique and 4 visitors.
Make sense? Any questions?
I made this thread because somebody was selling a site and their definition of a hit was being misinterpretted by most of the people responding. Hopefully this clears things up.