Understanding Unique Hit Tracking

What are Unique Hits?

Unique hits represent distinct visits to your website. Unlike total hits, which count every page view, unique hits give you an idea of how many different sessions or approximate number of visitors your site receives.

How We Track Unique Hits

We’ve implemented a privacy-focused system to count unique hits without compromising visitor anonymity. Here’s how it works:

Anonymous Data Collection: When a hit occurs, we collect non-personal information such as:
- The page URL
- Basic browser information
- Cloudflare request data (we never see or store the visitor’s actual IP address)
Unique Hash Creation: This information is combined with the current date and an internal “salt” (a random string) to create a unique hash.
Privacy Through Hashing: The hash is a one-way process, meaning it’s impossible to reverse it to identify any individual visitor.
Rotating Salt: We change our internal “salt” every 12 hours. This means the same visitor will likely generate different hashes on different days, preventing any long-term tracking.

Privacy and Security Measures

No personal data or visitor IP addresses are ever stored.
We use only Cloudflare’s IP addresses in our calculations, not your visitors’ addresses.
The 12-hour salt rotation ensures that long-term tracking is impossible.
Our hashing process is one-way, so original visit data can’t be reconstructed.

What This Means for You

You get a more accurate picture of your site’s reach without compromising visitor privacy.
Unique hit counts are an approximation and may not be 100% accurate, but they provide valuable insights while prioritizing privacy.
You can confidently use this feature knowing it aligns with strong privacy protection standards.

Important Notes

Unique hits are counted per 12 hours. The same visitor might be counted as unique again if they return on a different day, or after 12 hours.
This system is designed to balance useful analytics with the highest standards of visitor privacy protection.