total visit number is not same as total unique visitors

[Hyeran]

Hi there, 

I am a bit confused about the visit number  

As I understand, the visit number is counted as a unique visitor, so if I visited the website yesterday and visited today, it is recorded as Visit number 2 and not recorded as visit number 1. 

Then, I expected the sum of visit numbers might be the same as the total unique visitors and visits, but only total visits were as same as the sum of visit numbers. 

Can anyone explain why? T.T

[mohammadz]

HI @Hyeran ,

Unique Visitor always needs to be considered with respect to the time window.
If visitorX visits on Day 1 (visit num 1) and then again on Day 2 (visit num 2), and if you run a Unique Visitor report broken by Days then visitor X will be counted across Day 1 (for visit num 1) and Day 2 (for visit num 2). However, the total unique visitor number at the top will count visitorX only once.
While if you run the same Unique Visitor report broken by Week, VisitorX will be counted only once in that weekly line item.

With that in mind, imagine visitr X made both the visits on the same day instead of two different days. Then, you replicate the view you have shared above, then in that case VisitorX will be counted as a unique visitor across two consecutive visits(for visit num 1 and 2 respectively), however in the total numbers at the top he is just 1 unique visitor only.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

Also, Visit Number is based on ALL Time data... whereas Unique Visitor is based on your report period. 

For Visit Number, the first visit could have been recorded years ago.

As @mohammadz said, a user can have multiple visits in a month. or in a day.. each of those visits will have it's own incremental number. So let's say I as a user came to your site 5 times (if it's my first time to your site, I would show as Visit Number 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 (and potentially visit 2 and 3 could have happened on the same day)... but if I have been using your site for years, those 5 visits could be represented by Visit Number 146, 147, 148, 149 and 150.

@Hyeran I am not sure what you mean by "As I understand, the visit number is counted as a unique visitor, so if I visited the website yesterday and visited today, it is recorded as Visit number 2 and not recorded as visit number 1"... within the same report period, every visit will count with the proper visit number... 

Visit Number 1 will not be dropped from that visit once Visit Number 2 occurs.... each visit will maintain its visit number associated to the visit.