Unique visitors without tracking: why exact counting requires recognition

A pure page view counter can add up each request without recognizing visitors. For “Unique Visitors”, however, it must be decided which requests belong together. This requires at least one temporary identifier or derivative - such as a cookie, browser memory, session ID or hash from request characteristics. If you forego this, you will receive page views, but not an exact number of people.

Practical Implication

If you want to avoid recognition, count page views and technical events, but don't promise an exact number of unique people.

Principle

“We don’t save!” does not evaluate whether an IP address becomes visible during technical communication, but rather whether this results in unnecessary persistent storage, recognition or sharing.

Related guides

Sources and verification

This guide is based on multiple current sources. Vendor documentation is not treated as proof that every concrete installation automatically follows the same privacy characteristics.

Important: IP processing is not IP storage

An IP address has to be processed to establish and deliver a network connection. Hosting providers, firewalls or DDoS protection may also process or retain it for a limited time for security purposes. No Logging distinguishes this security layer from unnecessary persistent visitor logging by the website, application and ordinary access logs.