How I count impressions
An impression is counted each time a person's web browser loads your notice on The Seattle Courant.
What I don't count. You're never charged for these:
- Bots and crawlers. Search engines, link previews, monitoring tools and other known bots are checked against a list and left out. So is anything that isn't a browser showing the notice inside a page.
- Pages loaded ahead of time. Some browsers load a page in advance in case the reader opens it. A notice loaded that way isn't counted, even if the reader opens the page afterwards.
- Quick reloads. If the same reader loads your notice again within 30 seconds of a counted impression, it counts once. I tell readers apart only by network address and browser, so two people sharing both within those 30 seconds count once as well.
A person approves every notice. No notice runs on The Seattle Courant until a person here has read it and checked its link, and every edit is checked again before it runs. That keeps scam and spam notices off the page you're paying to appear on.
Clicks are counted when a reader follows your notice's link. Known bots are checked against the same list and left out, but there's no 30-second rule for clicks: each one counts. They're free, and shown to you as a courtesy.
Readers' privacy. Your notice sets no cookies, and I keep nothing about readers. To spot quick reloads I keep a key made from the reader's network address, browser and the date, scrambled with a secret. It doesn't contain the address. I use it for 30 seconds, and it's deleted at the next hourly clean-up.
No filter is perfect. If a day's numbers look wrong, tell me and I'll look.
SeattleCourant.com is a product of Nuthatch LLC, of Maryland. Charges will post to your account from Nuthatch LLC.