A website's visitor statistics is not a single, monolithic number; several related attributes make up these statistics. To make sense of the numbers as you view the various reports, you must know what those attributes are and what they mean. So, here's the vernacular:
Note
Keep in mind that these definitions are specific to Reports; other web analytics packages may have different meanings for these terms.
- Visitors: A visitor is a person who requests a page from a website.
- Page views: A page view represents a visitor accessing a page on a website.
- Visits: Everything that a visitor does on a website before leaving it constitutes a visit. A visit results in one or more page views. If a visitor doesn't do anything for a while, usually 30 minutes, the visit ends.
- New and returning visitors: A person paying his first visit to a website is a new visitor. His second visit onward, he becomes a returning visitor. Websites distinguish between new and returning visitors based on their IP addresses, by giving them cookies, or some combination thereof. Let's say the same person arrives at a website at two different times. If you view Reports between his first and second visits, it will show one visit and one new visitor. If you view Reports after the second visit, it will show two visits and one returning visitor.
- Unique visitors: The term unique visitors refers to the number of distinct people who visit a website. If a person visits a website three times, the web server records three visits, but only one unique visitor. From the Report's point of view:
Unique Visitors = New Visitors + Returning Visitors - Entry pages: An entry page is the first page on a website that a visitor views during a given visit. Say a website has three pages: Home, Products, and Contact Us. If a visitor clicks on a link in the search-engine results that brings him to the Products page, then it is the entry page for that visit.
- Exit pages: An exit page is the last page on a website that a visitor views during a given visit. Continuing with the example in the previous entry, if the visitor views the Contact Us page after entering the site at the Products page and then surfs away to another site, the Contact Us page is the exit page for that visit.
- Sources: A visitor arrives at a website either by clicking on a link on another website or by typing the website's address in his browser's address bar. If he arrives from another website, that website is the source or the referrer for his visit. If, on the other hand, he types the website's address in his browser's address bar, a direct link is the source for his visit.
- Referrer pages: The specific page, on the source website, on which a visitor clicks a link to arrive at a website, is the referrer page. A referrer page is of interest only if it's not a search results page of a search engine. If it is, the keyword(s) that the visitor entered for the search are more relevant.
- Keywords: Keywords are the words, terms, or phrases that people search for using search engines. If you search for the words Office Live, those are the keywords.
- Conversions and Conversion points: The main reason that people build websites is to lure visitors into taking an action, whether that's to buy an item, ask for a quote, or give feedback. When a visitor takes such a desired action, he makes a conversion and reaches a conversion point. Let's say a website's primary purpose is to sell some items and to that end, the website has a shopping cart. Let's also assume that after a visitor places an order by checking out from the shopping cart, the website displays an order confirmation page. Now, everytime someone reaches the order confirmation page, he takes an action that the site's owners want him to take. Therefore, he makes a conversion and the order confirmation page is conversion point.
- Conversion rate: The conversion rate tells you how often visitors to a website reach a conversion point. If five out of every hundred visits result in a conversion, the conversion rate is 5%.
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