Traffic Analytics Trends And Metrics: A Complete Guide For Visitors Measurement

Traffic Analytics Trends And Metrics: A Complete Guide For Visitors Measurement

By Michael Thompson

February 22, 2025 at 03:19 AM

Traffic analysis helps measure your site's traffic and interactions through three key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • Unique Visitors: Estimated total number of individual visitors tracked via a 2-year browser cookie
  • Visits: Individual browsing sessions that last up to 30 minutes, reset at midnight
  • Page Views: Total number of actual page requests, including password-protected and collection pages

Online web traffic graph

Online web traffic graph

The Analytics panel allows you to:

  • Filter data by date range (from January 2014)
  • Compare KPI percentage changes
  • Review traffic alerts
  • View trends through an interactive line graph

Line graph with yellow rectangle

Line graph with yellow rectangle

For Visit data, you can analyze breakdowns by:

  • Device type (mobile, desktop, tablet)
  • Traffic source (referral origins)
  • Browser type
  • Operating system

Index Page Views (version 7.0):

  • Subpages accessed from main index count as index page views
  • Direct subpage URL access counts as individual page views

Important Notes:

  • Browser cookies track visits (30-minute duration) and unique visitors (2-year duration)
  • Chrome's "Do Not Track" option may affect analytics accuracy by recording each page view as a new visitor
  • Page view counts exclude image URLs, scripts, and error pages
  • All browsing sessions reset at midnight

Use these metrics to understand your audience growth, track engagement, and make informed decisions about your website's performance and optimization strategies.

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