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Unique Visitors = 1/10th of Unique IPs?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the that-might-be-pushing-it dept.

Max Fomitchev submitted a little blog entry where he proposes that the ratio of unique IPs to actual unique users is 10:1. This flies in the face of the numbers you usually see attached to these sorts of things. I'm not sure about the logic he uses to come up with these numbers either.

11 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. 10 was arbitrary by op12 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The 10 was a hypothetical...the only point was that you can't trust the number of recurring visitors that a site reports because they users come back with a different IP (obvious) and get counted twice. Couldn't one use cookies and IPs in combination to get a better gauge? The IP may change but the cookie would not. Sure some may delete it, but it'll still improve accuracy at least a little bit.

  2. so... by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, he's saying my website has 1/10th of a visitor?

    --
    This guy's the limit!
  3. Neighbor's Wireless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I help keep this in balance by using my neighbor's wireless, that IP has a load of unique users.

  4. But... by xpird · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can he find a formula for the number of /. articles posted vs. the actual unique articles?

  5. wait a sec by hurfy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I forgot something.
    What about the other way?

    Do they see the 10 people on the office NAT as one IP ?!?

    That would skew it in the other direction and average things out wouldn't it? Now 10 is definately excessive.

  6. I thought it was the opposite. by Black+Perl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First of all, a DHCP server is typically going to give you the same IP address each time your computer requests it, unless there are more users than IP addresses, in which case there will be some shuffling. But that tends to be when there are more users than available IPs.

    There are entire domains hidden behind a NAT device of some sort. This would be many users per IP address. TFA didn't mention this at all.

    So I think TFA is indeed arbitrary, and also wrong.

    --
    bp
    1. Re:I thought it was the opposite. by the+melon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, here at Sun there are nearly 40 thousand people that connect through 40-50 different proxy servers. That is a thousand to 1 in the opposite direction the article claims.

      And yes, he seems to have no idea how DHCP really works. Even if your lease is expired you will get the same IP address unless the pool has been exausted and your address re-used. I see that as an extremly unlikely thing to happen because it would mean, as you say, that your pool is smaller than your installed base. If you pool is smaller then you will start having issues because x number of customers will always be without a connection because they can't get an address.

      Had he mentioned Dialup users then I would be more inclined to agree because you are very likely to get a different address every time you connect.

  7. Re:This is pointless by Churla · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes...

    But 37.5% of all stats presented by people are made up on the fly.

    Only about 2.31% of people know that by adding numbers after the decimal point the average person considers the number "more credible".

    --
    I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
  8. The key is not the Ratio, it's the Revelation by EvilMagnus · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's that this is a Marketing Person who has realised that IP != Unique User.

    That places him amongst a tiny minority of marketing people, even if his reasoning and ideas on methodology are just as batshit insane as the rest of his kin.

    --
    -EvilMagnus
  9. Re:On the contrary... by ranson · · Score: 4, Informative

    AOL user's actual IPs do not change mid-session, but the web proxy server that is making requests on behalf of the user changes all the time; my server logs even show certain objects on a single page for the same user are requested by different cache-*.aol.com servers.

    Lots of info about that is here.. including the proxy IP list, etc... http://webmaster.info.aol.com/proxyinfo.html they say specfically "When a member requests multiple documents for multiple URLs, each request may come from a different proxy server. Since one proxy server can have multiple members going to one site, webmasters should not make assumptions about the relationship between members and proxy servers when designing their web site."

  10. I've ALWAYS had the same IP (going on 15 years)! by sd.fhasldff · · Score: 4, Funny

    My IP has been 127.0.0.1 for a really long time now. Ever since I got my first internet connection, actually. That must be why it's such a "nice" number and not those horribly complicated ones other people always seem to have.