My family and I are new to the hobby and are completely hooked now. I think the website terminology is a bit misleading. I don't believe caches are actually logged on the website. They are only logged in the cache's logsheet, thus it can only be found with physical manipulation.
"logging" on the website is just a means to track statistics but they are easily distorted. I see the website as more of vehicle for sharing the experience with other hobbyists and communicating cache conditions quickly and easily.
The main difference is that logging on the site leads to a more creative definition of "found it," whereas the physical log is more concrete but is also prone to getting lost.
