What constitutes a "Unique"
 

I'm trying to figure this out as I'm dumping outside counters and have my own script counting hits.
At first I only counted someone as a "unique" if they hadn't been to the site in 24 hours...but I realized the fallacy of that since if a surfer visited the site a few times a day at different times they would NEVER count as a unique again.
So now I have tried every 12 hours...but that is giving me figures that are closer to third party counters "First Time" numbers.
I have heard time intervals as varied as 24 hours all the way down to 30 minutes.
Does anybody have any experience in this that could give me some idea of an industry "standard" (even though I know one does not exist) time interval to count a surfer as a unique?
Doing this project has given me some interesting insight into ACTUAL numbers of people visiting a site and sure does explain to me how some sites jumped so fast in "uniques" a few years back! :) LOL! I guess a little tweaking of the time interval and you could be showing a few million uniques and raising your ad rate...but I'm sure nobody would do that! :winkwink:
Anyway, any ideas?

IMO most people use 24 hour uniques for traffic measurement. As long as you report the frequency along with the stats, it shouldn't really matter much.

You could always track more than one criteria for measurement - 12 hr, 24 hr, 30 day, etc, then analyze that info and figure out which measurement works best for marketing.

Choker, for example, sells some traffic based on 30 day uniques (don't hold me to this - that's what I remember..). Others sell based on 24hrs. Same thing can hold true for ad sales.

24 hours doesn't work. What you get is a number real close to what the different counters call "first time" not unique.
Let's say you went to a site every day 3 or 4 times. Maybe in the morning, around lunch, the afternoon, and at night.
With the 24 hour criteria you would NEVER be a "unique" you would always be a raw hit.
That's what I'm seeing when I try to go with 24 hour stats. I'm only seeing about a fourth of what all the different counters show as uniques.
So I'm wondering what sextracker or sexcounter or sexlist constitute as a "unique". I know a lot of programmers that "know other programmers" who have given me a lot of different numbers. As I said, logically I thought "24 hours" but as I said...it don't work that way. One programmer told me that "a friend of his" told him 30 minutes!!!! That seems a little extreme to me. But there has to be a decent time interval.
As I said in the beginning, I'm using a 12 hour count right now. From noon to midnite. But even that doesn't get it quite right.
Some of the counters set cookies but I'm just counting.
I looked around Sex Tracker (which ain't easy to navigate) and Sex Counter... but as far as I can tell there is nowhere on either site that explains how they are counting "uniques".
So that was why I thought a "unique" was counted as a surfer who has not been to your site for 24 hours...but as I pointed out...that don't work if you use the previous day and go from midnite to midnite you still end up with numbers that are WAY below what the major counters will tell you.
It's just confusing...
And what is the difference between "First Time" and "Unique"? On Sex Counter when you look at your stats you have "Raws", "Uniques", and "First Times".
I'm really wondering after putting my own counter up and comparing it to server stats and then seeing the numbers that sextracker and sexcounter and sexlist have shown me at...just how accurate any of those numbers really are and what they mean.
If a million "uniques" is really only 250,000 of what we logically think is a "unique" then that would be very interesting... cause that's sort of the picture that I'm getting from all this.

how about this.....go for a set 24 hour period...
ie 00:00 to 23:59

the first time the surfer visits counts as one unique, subsequent visits by that surfer count as raws.
then reset again at 00:00 for the next 24 hour period.

If ya got a 24 inch cock....its unique!!

Look, you'll have all sorts of answers from this board on what counts as "unique".

Want to be hard-line about it - unique is one person and you can't count them again.

Want to be not so hard-line about it - unique could be the same IP addy visiting your site once in a set interval (24 hours / 12 hours / 6 hours / etc).

Want to warp your brain over uniques - factor in AOL and other ISP proxies, factor out the jumping of class C addys, hope their not using a web accelerator fucking up the IPs their coming from and make up your own numbers from that including your first approach to being "hard-line" or "not so hard-line".

Take into the account the difference between Awstats and Webalizer in their definition of unique and you get even more skew of numbers.

Then start comparing your numbers to sponsor programs and get even more confused.

My advice - just try and find a middle ground between all of the above, if you want to work that hard, and have proof of what you say if you're selling ad space.

Lastly, and I'm sure you're doing this, make sure the column "hits" in your host's stats is not counted in your equation as a unique.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy...I'm not really interested in my stats for the purpose of selling ad space. I know a lot of guys do. And that's why I looked at the numbers I was seeing in comparison to what the big counters show and was shocked. I was thinking that maybe I wasn't counting right or something.
But the guys at Sex Counter just IM'ed me and gave me a little education on how they do it. And also gave me an insight into how and why some of the crazy numbers that some sites are showing work.
I guess I need to get a work around for how to count people that come to the sites. We have a lot of bookmarked surfers who are very loyal and visit us everyday. But just counting them every 24 hours means that they (and me as well) can NEVER be a unique again. That's the drawback to straight counting. I figure that if a guy is surfing the site at 6 in the afternoon and then comes back at 9 the next morning....he should be a unique. But what about the guy who is surfing at 12:30 a.m. and comes back at 7 in the evening the next night? He wouldn't be a unique...but he probably should be.
All the big counters use cookies...and some of the older ones now trigger every antivirus software known to man...plus all the new anti spyware is working on them too. So the cookies get stripped. And then the next time a surfer visits...even if it's 5 minutes later...guess what? They are a "unique".
And they will be counted as a "unique" every damn time they come to the page!!!!
That's why I'm saying that the counters may not be completely accurate.
They probably look good to the guys who are trying to sell ad space based on "uniques" But since I don't sell "hits" I just want to know the truth about my traffic. Even if it hurts :( my ego! LOL!

A surfer coming 3-4 times a day is not a unique, unless you mean unique surfing experience.

If you are after a unique session, then I would say if they come back after 2 hours, that should be a unique. But that might not be so accurate if they surf a buncha sites and then get blind linked back to you.

So maybe every 4-6 hours would be better.

You answered your own question, "one does not exist". There are about 700,000 sponsors out there and all count uniques differently.