If your website attracts 10,000 unique visits daily, but only 10 return visitors, then you are not doing as well as the site that attracts 250 unique visitors, but of those, sees 125 return visitors each day.

The money, as it were, is in those return visitors. That’s according to usability guru Jakob Nielsen.

Given growing bounce rates, we must stop using “unique visitors” as a metric for site success. Site tourists who leave a site immediately ratchet up the unique visitor count, but don’t contribute long-term value. On the contrary, bouncers should be considered a negative statistic: the site failed to engage them enough to entice even a second pageview. To measure site success, you should count only loyal users who return repeatedly. Or, if your site is such that most people will visit only once, at least require that they exhibit a minimum amount of engagement before you count them as a positive statistic.

While I see the point Mr Nielsen is making, I don’t go along with his assertation that “unique visitors must die”… I’m happy to see all-comers, whether you’re new or you’ve been coming here forever. :)