what do usage statistics - views and requests - actually mean?

[AndyWallace]

On AGOL you can get figures on the views of your web maps. But what exactly does it mean? You can also click on usage for a feature class and get number of  requests. AGOL help says;

"Requests is useful for understanding the number of clients using your service over a period of time."

Does this mean unique individuals? Is a request under this dialogue the same measure as "views" under the map summary? My map has 17,000 views but the feature class that feeds it says 26,000 views. Why the difference?

In days gone by we used to report "hits" to our website as an indicator of usage but in fact this could be wildly misleading. It would be good to know how ESRI count their requests and views.

[KevinShipman]

I wish these details were clearer and well defined. I am making comments to Esri to have these tools more in line with what most people are used to with web tracking. I can tell you they aren't unique. Every time I visit one of my maps it jumps up, so I think a map is any view what so ever, possibly including just views of the details page. The feature views are even more difficult to understand. Also, there are discrepancies in the number of views between the organizational reporting and the individual details of the map (see thread below). Hoping the views/tracking features will improve with additional updates.

Thanks!

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/105461-Why-do-the-amount-of-views-change-when-looking-at-the-detail...

[andysp]

For anyone looking, that discussion has moved:

Why do the amount of views change when looking at the details of the map?‌

See also:

Inconsistent view count