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The Building Blocks of Your Analysis: A Privacy-Focused Approach

Every analysis begins with understanding the fundamental metrics. Our platform uses a privacy-focused, cookieless approach. This means we do not store persistent cookies in your users’ browsers. Instead, we use an anonymized identifier that rotates daily. This method has a direct impact on how “visitors” are counted and interpreted. This page explains the meaning and nuances of each metric in this context.

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Visitors (Unique Visitors)

  • What it measures: The number of unique, anonymized identifiers that have visited your website within a single 24-hour window.
  • How it works: When a user visits your site, an anonymized identifier is generated from their IP address and other browser characteristics. A daily rotating “salt” (a random string) ensures that this identifier is only valid for 24 hours. This protects your users’ privacy, as they cannot be tracked across multiple days.
  • The 24-Hour Rule:
    • If a user visits your site on Monday at 10 AM and again at 3 PM, they are counted as one visitor.
    • If the same user visits the site again on Tuesday, they receive a new, anonymous identifier and are counted as a new, additional visitor for that day.
  • How to interpret this: This metric is perfect for measuring your daily reach. It shows how many different people you reached on a specific day. It is unsuitable for analyzing returning visitors over longer periods (e.g., a week or month). Instead, look at trends in your daily visitor count to evaluate your growth.

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Pageviews

  • What it measures: The total number of pages viewed.
  • How it works: Every time a page on your website is loaded or reloaded (refreshed), it counts as one pageview. This metric is unaffected by the cookieless approach.
  • How to interpret this: This number becomes interesting in relation to other metrics. Pageviews / Visitors gives you the average number of pages a visitor views per day and is a strong indicator of engagement with your content.

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Sessions

  • What it measures: A continuous period of interactions from a single visitor on your website.
  • How it works: A session begins when a visitor arrives on your site. It automatically ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. All actions within this timeframe belong to the same session. If the same user (within the 24-hour window) returns after more than a 30-minute break, a new session begins.
  • How to interpret this: The number of sessions is always greater than or equal to the number of visitors. The Sessions / Visitors ratio shows you how often an average visitor returns to your site within a single day. It’s a measure of immediate relevance or the “binge-watching” of your content in one day.

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Bounce Rate

  • What it measures: The percentage of sessions in which only a single page was viewed and no other interaction took place.
  • How it works: A “bounce” occurs when a visitor lands on a page and then leaves without clicking another link or triggering an event. Formula: (Number of Bounces / Total Number of Sessions) * 100%. This calculation is unaffected by the cookieless approach.
  • How to interpret this: Context is crucial.
    • Commercial sites: A high bounce rate is often an alarm signal.
    • Informational sites (blogs, news): A high bounce rate can mean the user found their answer quickly and was satisfied.

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Engagement Rate

  • What it measures: The percentage of sessions in which the user became active. It is the exact opposite of the Bounce Rate.
  • How it works: A session is considered “engaged” if, for example, more than one page was viewed or the session lasted longer than 10 seconds. This is often a fairer metric than bounce rate.
  • How to interpret this: A high engagement rate is almost always a good sign of your content’s quality and your site’s usability.

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Avg. Session Duration

  • What it measures: The average length of a session.
  • How it works: It measures the time between the first and last event in a session. The time spent on the last page of a session cannot be measured, which can make this metric slightly inaccurate.
  • How to interpret this: A high value on a blog is good (the visitor is reading). A high value on a checkout page is bad (the visitor is having trouble).

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Events

  • What it measures: Specific interactions (e.g., clicks, form submissions) that you define as important.
  • How it works: Events are custom actions and are counted independently of pageviews. They are the most powerful tool for measuring conversions.
  • How to interpret this: Use events to measure the true success of your website, such as the number of purchases, sign-ups, or downloads.
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