What’s the difference between Views and Visitors?

Views count how many pages were opened. Visitors count how many different people opened them. One visitor who opens three pages is 3 views and 1 visitor.

What are Views and Visitors?

• Views is the number of page hits your site has received. Every page that loads adds one view, including a second visit to the same page.
• Visitors is the number of unique users that have visited your site in the period you are looking at.

A simple example

Two people visit your site today. The first opens the home page, the pricing page and one blog post. The second opens two blog posts.

• Visitors: 2
• Views: 5
• Pages per visitor: 5 / 2 = 2.5

Why Views is higher than Visitors

A visitor is counted once, but each page they open is counted as a view. So Views should be greater than Visitors. On a site with very low traffic the two numbers can occasionally behave differently because of how the exclusion rules work.

How to calculate the average pages per visitor

Divide Views by Visitors. A higher number means people read more than one page before they leave.

Where to see both in WP Statistics

Open Statistics in your WordPress dashboard, then Visitor Insights. The Visitors tab lists each visitor, and the Views tab lists each page view. The Overview tab shows both numbers for the period you choose.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between views and viewers?

Most people mean “views” and “visitors”. Views are page loads. Visitors are the unique people who caused them.

Can Views be lower than Visitors?

Normally not, since every visitor opens at least one page. On very low-traffic sites the numbers can look odd for a short time because of how exclusions work.

Which number should I trust for my audience size?

Use Visitors for audience size and Views for how much content gets read. Looking at both together tells you whether people stay and read more than one page.