Hits represent the total number of requests made to the server during the given time period (month, day, hour etc).

Visits occur when some remote site makes a request for a page on your server for the first time. As long as the same site keeps making requests within a given timeout period, they will all be considered part of the same Visit. If the site makes a request to your server, and the length of time since the last request is greater than the specified timeout period (30 minutes), a new Visit is started and counted, and the sequence repeats. Since only pages will trigger a visit, remotes sites that link to graphic and other non- page URLs will not be counted in the visit totals, reducing the number of false visits.


So, from memory, an example...

I browse to an opening website which has 5 images on it, I then click straight on another page on the same "site" which has 2 images on it, I then go to another page on that site which has 10 images on it, I then get bored and leave.

Result? 1 visit, because all of those page-views were in the time-period set by the server, but 20 hits (3 pages + 17 images).

Pretty sure that's how it works...