difference between uniques and hops

I believe hops are not unique. It is a count of all visits, even if they're from the same person.

I imagine the analytics stats show less visitors?

Hey, Barry -

One major problem with all analytics programs is that they are not perfect. If you run 2 separate programs at the same time [hypothetically] you'll likely get different numbers.

You can make the analogy to Alexa... while it has been accepted that Alexa is not 100% accurate, it should be reasonably inaccurate across the board, so even imperfect numbers can be helpful.

[Same thing goes with analytics and metrics.]

One thing here though is the common terms we use...

Typically, a 'unique' is a first time visitor, and a 'repeat' is of course a visitor who has already been to your site before.

[Repeats are also typically used to define a site's 'stickiness.' In addition, uniques and repeats convert at completely different ratios.]

Normally, regardless of the traffic source, and if cookies are properly placed, tracked, and have long-term expiration dates [or do not expire] then you can easily separate the unique first time visitors and the people who come back more than once.

And the better analytics programs tell you the traffic source, uniques vs. repeats, and more info that's valuable including path tracking, defection points, time spent per page, etc.

Hope this helps -

Chip Tarver

PS - And, of course, users who regularly delete their cookies can skew all the data and play 'games' with affiliates as well...