Difference between Page Views and Impressions

Key Difference: In web analytics, page views and impressions are commonly used words. Page views denote the number of times a particular page is viewed. On the other hand, impressions denote the number of times an element on a web page is viewed. However, 'page views' and 'page impressions' are the same.

Page views and impressions are two commonly used words in the field of web analytics. These words are used interchangeably sometimes to denote the number of visits to a particular website. The term impression has a particular meaning however in context to page impressions; it is used as the same as page views. Generally, Impression is used in context to advertisement impressions.

Whenever a user visits a web page, it is counted as a page view. These numbers are basically used by the website monitoring applications to keep track of the website’s traffic. A website with more page views is often preferred by the online advertisers in comparison to a web site with a lesser number of page views. It can be defined by a simple calculation which calculates the number of times a page is viewed. The total number of page views can be divided with the number of unique visitors to calculate the average number of page views generated by a single user. It is important to mention that this number is incremented even if the visitor reloads the same page. In case the visitor reaches some other page and then views the original page again, it will still be counted as another page view.

Page impression is the same as page view. Thus, in context to a page impression, there is no difference between these two terms. However, impressions is generally used in context to a particular element which appears on a web page. This element can be an image, text or even a video. Generally, it is calculated in bulk of 1000. A banner impression refers to the number of times a specific banner gets displayed on the website. Generally, an advertiser pays on the basis of cost per thousand impressions. Page views and advertisement impressions remains the same, if each time a page is viewed and simultaneously the advertisement is also viewed. However, if the advertisement is somewhere in the bottom of the page and the user does not scroll down to view it, then in this and similar cases, this instance will be counted in page view but not in banner impression; as the page was viewed but the banner was not viewed.

Comparison between Page View and Impression:

	Page View	Impression
Definition	Page views denote the number of visits to a particular webpage.	Page impression is the same as page view. However, impression is generally used in context to a particular element which appears on a web page. This element can be an image, text or even a video.
Features	Regardless of the number of hits generated. Reloading is also considered.	Page view and page impression is the same. Generally, used in context to an advertisement impression. Used in calculations as per thousand impressions.
Similarity	Page Impressions are the same as page views.	Impressions as ‘Page Impressions’ are the same as Page Views. However, the term impression only is generally associated with advertisements or any other similar elements on a web page.