Website Analytics Glossary & Quiz

Website Analytics

The collection and analysis of information about how people find and use your website. Analytics helps you assess marketing performance, understand visitor behaviour and identify opportunities to improve enquiries or sales.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

Google’s website and app analytics platform. GA4 records interactions as events, allowing you to explore traffic sources, page activity and important actions such as enquiries and purchases.

Users & Unique Visitors

Users represent distinct visitors identified by your analytics system within a selected period. One person may be counted more than once if they use different devices or browsers, so user counts are not an exact headcount.

Active Users

A GA4 measure identifying users who meet its activity criteria, such as having an engaged session. Many standard GA4 reports use active users as their main user measure, so check which definition your report displays.

New & Returning Users

New users are identified as visiting for the first time. Returning users have visited previously. These measures help you understand audience growth and repeat interest, although identification depends on the available tracking data.

Session

A period of interaction with your website. One user can have several sessions. In GA4, sessions normally time out after 30 minutes of inactivity, although that setting can be changed.

Pageview & Views

A pageview records a page being viewed, including repeat views. GA4’s Views metric combines page and app screen views; on a website-only property, it represents recorded pageviews.

Landing Page

The first page someone views during a session. Reviewing landing pages helps you understand where visitors enter your website and whether those pages encourage useful next steps.

Engaged Session

In GA4, a session is engaged when it lasts longer than the configured engagement threshold, includes a key event, or has at least two page or screen views. The default time threshold is 10 seconds.

Engagement Rate

The percentage of sessions that qualify as engaged sessions. It provides context about visitor activity, but should be considered alongside your page’s purpose and the actions visitors complete.

Bounce Rate

In GA4, bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that are not engaged. It does not simply mean someone viewed one page and left. A single-page visit can still qualify as engaged.

Average Engagement Time

The average time your website is in focus in a visitor’s browser. Check the metric’s full name: average engagement time is calculated per active user, while average engagement time per session is calculated per session.

Average Session Duration

The average recorded duration of sessions. This differs from engagement time, which focuses on time when the website is actively in view. Check the metric used before comparing reports.

Exits & Exit Rate

An exit identifies where a session ended. Exit rate generally describes how often a page was the final page viewed relative to its views. An exit is not automatically a problem: visitors may leave after finding information or completing an action.

Event

A recorded interaction, such as viewing a page, clicking a link or submitting a form. Some events are collected automatically; others need additional configuration.

Event Parameters

Extra details recorded with an event, such as a page address, button name or transaction value. Parameters help explain what happened and make reports more useful.

Key Event

An event marked as particularly important to your business in GA4. Examples include a successful enquiry submission or purchase. Choose meaningful actions rather than treating every click as a business result.

Conversion

A valuable action, such as an enquiry, booking or sale. In GA4, important actions are marked as key events. Google Ads conversions can be created from those events for advertising measurement and optimisation.

Conversion Rate & Key Event Rate

A rate showing how often a chosen action occurs relative to a defined group. GA4’s session key event rate measures sessions with a key event; user key event rate measures users with a key event. Check the denominator before comparing figures.

Traffic Source & Medium

Source identifies where traffic came from, such as Google or a newsletter. Medium describes the type of traffic, such as organic search, paid clicks or email. Together, they help explain how visitors discovered your website.

Channel Groups

Categories that organise traffic into groups such as Organic Search, Paid Search, Email and Referral. They make it easier to compare the contribution of different marketing activities.

Organic Traffic

Visits from unpaid search results. Reviewing organic traffic alongside landing pages and key events helps you assess whether search visibility is attracting visitors who take useful actions.

Paid Traffic

Visits attributed to advertising campaigns. Assess paid traffic alongside spending, enquiries, purchases and lead quality to understand whether it supports your business goals.

Referral Traffic

Visits arriving through links on other websites. Referral reports can reveal useful partnerships, directories or publications that introduce people to your business.

Direct Traffic

Traffic for which analytics cannot identify a clear referral source. It may include typed addresses and bookmarks, but can also result from untagged links or missing referral information.

UTM Parameters

Labels added to campaign links to identify their source, medium and campaign. Consistent UTM tagging helps you distinguish visits from emails, social posts and other marketing activity.

User Acquisition & Traffic Acquisition

User acquisition reports explain how users were first acquired. Traffic acquisition reports explain the sources of individual sessions. These answer different questions, particularly when someone returns through another channel.

Attribution

The method used to assign credit for a key event or conversion to marketing interactions. Attribution helps assess channel contributions, but it relies on available data and does not reveal every influence on a purchase.

Impressions

The number of times a search listing or advert is shown, according to the reporting platform’s rules. Impressions measure exposure, rather than visits or enquiries.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The percentage of impressions that result in a click. For example, 20 clicks from 1,000 impressions gives a CTR of 2%. Interpret it alongside targeting, placement and the quality of resulting traffic.

Metrics & Dimensions

Metrics are numerical measures, such as sessions or purchases. Dimensions describe those measures, such as traffic source, device type or page title. Combining them helps answer specific business questions.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The measures selected to track progress towards your goals. For a service business, these might include qualified enquiries, bookings and cost per lead, rather than website traffic alone.

Funnel Analysis

Examining the steps people take towards an action, such as moving from a service page to an enquiry form and successful submission. It helps identify where visitors drop away.

Segment

A selected group of users, sessions or events used for analysis. Comparing groups, such as mobile visitors and desktop visitors, can reveal differences hidden within overall averages.

Dashboard

A summary of selected performance measures in one place. A useful dashboard highlights your goals, relevant trends and the information needed to make decisions.

Google Tag Manager (GTM)

A tool for managing website tracking tags. It can help configure analytics and advertising measurement, but it does not replace GA4 or automatically make tracking accurate.

Google Search Console

Google’s tool for reporting search visibility, clicks and indexing. It complements GA4: Search Console explains activity in Google Search, while GA4 helps explain what happens on your website.

Consent & Data Quality

Analytics reports depend on tracking configuration, consent choices and available data. Missing tags, duplicate events and measurement gaps can affect results, so reports should be checked before decisions are made.

What Your Numbers Can and Cannot Tell You

More traffic is useful when it brings relevant customers. Longer visits may show interest, but they can also mean someone is struggling to find information. A form submission matters more when it becomes a genuine sales opportunity.

Look at measures together, compare suitable time periods and connect website activity with actual enquiries, bookings and sales. Analytics helps guide decisions; it needs business context to explain the results.