Hi,
Slimstat implements a VISIT (not visitor) ID, which assigns a unique identifier to each session initiated by a visitor on your website. Please note that visitors don’t need to be logged into your site for the session id to be assigned to them.
For your reference, Slimstat implements the same concept of session as Google Analytics:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2731565?hl=en
A visitor ID can be deducted by combining multiple elements of a pageview, basically creating what in technical terms is known as a “signature”. This is exactly what Facebook and other sites use to show you personalized ads based on your browsing history.
Such elements include the visitor’s user agent, ip address, visit id, searchterms and so on. It is not complicated to calculate a unique signature for each visitor, and then measure the ‘distance’ between signatures to see if that’s the same person within a reasonable range.
Cheers,
Camu
So is it safe to say that this visit ID would be the same regardless of login time? I.e. if the person logs in after a bunch of page views, would those previous pages views have the same signature as the one logged in as? The reason I ask is we are trying to get PER user behavior when they do not always login.
We can continue this offline if that helps, actually it would make me more comfortable.
Sure, contact us at http://support.wp-Slimstat.com 😉
Take care,
Camu
