Hits

In web analytics, a hit refers to any interaction that sends data to a server. It is one of the most basic units of measurement used to track activity on a website. A hit can represent many different types of interactions, such as a page view, an event (like a video play or button click), a transaction, or a social interaction. While commonly misunderstood as a measure of visitors, hits actually count the number of requests made to a server, which means a single page view can generate multiple hits.

For example, if a user visits a webpage that includes text, images, a video and tracking scripts, each of these assets may generate a separate hit. In older versions of analytics tools, such as Universal Analytics, hits were classified into categories like page hits, event hits and e-commerce hits. In Google Analytics 4, the data model has evolved to be fully event-based, where every interaction is considered an event rather than a hit, but the concept still informs the underlying tracking process.

Because hits include all file requests and interactions, they tend to be higher in volume than actual user sessions or visits. Relying on hit count alone can be misleading if you are trying to evaluate engagement or audience size. It is more meaningful to focus on metrics such as sessions, users, bounce rate and conversions when analysing performance. However, understanding hits remains useful when diagnosing server load, tracking tag behaviour or validating how data is being collected across your digital platforms.