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Web Analytics terms
Traffic, tags, cookies and consent: measuring what happens on a website.
Average session duration The mean length of time visitors spend in a session, measured differently by different analytics platforms. Bot traffic Website activity generated by automated programs rather than human visitors, ranging from crawlers to fraudulent scripts. Bounce rate The share of sessions that show no interaction beyond the entry page, defined differently by GA4 and classic web analytics. Browser fingerprinting Identifying a device from browser and device characteristics, such as screen size or fonts, without setting a cookie. Clickstream The raw, timestamped sequence of pages, clicks, and interactions a single visitor generates while browsing a site or app. Cookie A small piece of data a website stores in a visitor's browser to recognize them on return visits or across pages. Cookieless tracking Measuring visitor behavior without relying on persistent third-party cookies, using first-party, server-side or modeled data. Core Web Vitals Google's page-experience metrics for loading speed, interactivity and visual stability, used as a minor ranking signal. Custom dimension An attribute a site owner defines and sends to their analytics tool to capture data not tracked by default. Dark social Content sharing that happens through channels analytics tools cannot attribute, such as private messaging apps and copied links. Data layer A structured object on a page that exposes site and event data for a tag management system to read. Direct traffic Website visits an analytics tool cannot attribute to a referring source, such as a typed URL or a bookmark. Engaged time The time a user actively interacts with content, such as scrolling or clicking, as distinct from a page simply staying open. Engagement rate The share of sessions that meet a minimum bar for meaningful interaction, GA4's replacement for bounce rate. Exit rate The share of sessions that ended on a given page, out of all sessions in which that page appeared. Goal tracking Configuring an analytics tool to record when a visitor completes an action the business treats as valuable. Heatmap A visual overlay of a webpage showing aggregated visitor clicks, cursor movement or scrolling using color intensity. Landing page The first page a visitor sees in a session, used in analytics as an entry-point performance dimension. Organic traffic Visits arriving from unpaid listings on a search results page, as distinct from paid search, social or direct visits. Page load time How long a webpage takes to become usable to a visitor, measured at several different possible points. Pages per session The average number of pages a visitor views during a single session on a site. Pageview One load or reload of a web page recorded by an analytics tool, the most basic unit of web traffic measurement. Referral traffic Visits that arrive by clicking a link on another website, other than a search engine, paid ad or social network. Sampling in analytics Computing a report from a subset of the underlying data rather than the complete data set, to return results faster. Scroll depth How far down a page a visitor scrolls, tracked as a percentage or discrete thresholds to measure content exposure. Session A grouped window of a user's activity on a site or app, bounded by an inactivity timeout or similar cutoff rule. Session replay A reconstructed playback of one visitor's clicks, cursor movement and scrolling on a page, captured via browser events. Sessionization Grouping a visitor's raw, timestamped events into discrete sessions, usually by closing a session after a period of inactivity. Tag management A system for adding and configuring marketing and analytics tracking tags without editing a site's code. Third-party cookies Cookies set by a domain other than the one being visited, historically used for tracking visitors across sites. Unique visitors The count of distinct individuals, approximated by a client identifier, who visited a site within a given period.