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When you compare with another system or with finance, agree on definitions first, then on dates. Here is how the main website metrics are calculated.
Definitions
| Metric | How it's calculated |
|---|---|
| Pageviews | Number of pageviews. Each route change in a single-page app counts once |
| Visitors | People, de-duplicated by visitor identifier |
| Sessions | Visits. A new one starts after 30 minutes idle or on arrival from a new external source; at most 24 hours each |
| Online | Visitors with any activity in the last 5 minutes |
| Bounce rate | Bounced sessions ÷ all sessions. A bounce has one pageview and no custom event |
| Engagement rate | Engaged sessions ÷ all sessions. Engaged means at least 10 seconds, or at least 2 pages, or a goal marked as a key event |
| Average duration | Total session time ÷ sessions. Duration runs from the start to the last action in the session |
| Pages per session | Pageviews ÷ sessions |
| New visitors | Visitors seen for the first time |
| Goal conversion rate | Unique visitors who completed the goal ÷ all visitors in the period |
| Error rate | Script errors ÷ pageviews |
Misunderstanding 1: total visitors is higher than the number of people
The visitor total on the overview card and in data reports adds up each day's visitors. Someone who comes three days in a row counts three times.
To see how many different people visited over a period, use the de-duplicated range figure below the data report. It's available for ranges up to 93 days.
Misunderstanding 2: the two conversion rates disagree
- Goal conversion rate = people ÷ people: the share of visitors who completed the goal.
- Report conversion rate = conversions ÷ sessions: how many conversions an average visit produced.
Someone who visits five times and orders twice counts as converted in the first, and as 2 ÷ 5 in the second. Don't compare the two directly.
Misunderstanding 3: a high bounce rate is always bad
A visitor who arrives from search, reads one article and leaves satisfied is a bounce too. For blogs and documentation a high bounce rate is normal. Engagement rate is more useful, because it counts single-page visits that lasted long enough.
If a landing page has one key action — "Book a demo", say — make it a goal and mark it as a key event; sessions that hit it then count as engaged.
How visitors are de-duplicated
The website script doesn't set cookies by default. The collector derives the visitor identifier from the site, network address and browser details, without storing the raw IP. There are two modes:
- Balanced (default) — the identifier lasts long enough on the site to tell new visitors from returning ones.
- Strict — the identifier changes every day, so the same person is new again tomorrow; new-versus-returning and retention reports aren't available.
If your product has sign-in, identity mode can merge the same person's visits on phone and laptop — see Connecting anonymous visitors to signed-in users.
Rule changes only affect the future
Changes to session or exclusion rules apply to new data only, so charts show a step on the day of the change. Add a note under Configuration › Date annotations whenever you change a setting; months later you'll know where the step came from.