Metrics Glossary
Reference guide for every metric on the Ours Privacy web analytics dashboard, including definitions, calculation methodology, and usage guidance.
Metrics Glossary
Reference guide for every metric on the web analytics dashboard. Each entry includes a plain-language definition and details on how the metric is calculated.
Core Metrics
These six metrics appear in the overview section at the top of the dashboard.
Unique Visitors
The number of distinct visitors during the selected period.
How it's calculated: Each visitor is identified by a unique first-party cookie. One person visiting from two different browsers or devices counts as two unique visitors. Clearing cookies also creates a new visitor identity.
Total Visits
The number of sessions during the selected period. A session represents a single continuous period of activity by one visitor.
How it's calculated: A new session starts when a visitor arrives at your site after 30 minutes of inactivity. If a visitor leaves your site and returns within 30 minutes, it counts as the same session. If they return after 30 minutes, it counts as a new session.
Pageviews
The total number of page view events during the selected period.
How it's calculated: Every page load or client-side route change counts as one pageview. If a visitor views the same page three times in a session, that counts as three pageviews.
Views per Visit
The average number of pages viewed per session.
How it's calculated: Total pageviews divided by total sessions. A views-per-visit value of 3.2 means visitors view about 3 pages per session on average.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of sessions where the visitor viewed only one page before leaving.
How it's calculated: Sessions with exactly one pageview divided by total sessions, expressed as a percentage. A bounce rate of 45% means 45 out of every 100 sessions ended after a single page.
High bounce rates aren't bad by default. Blog posts and FAQ pages tend to show high rates because visitors find what they need on a single page.
Visit Duration
The typical length of a session.
How it's calculated: Visit duration uses the median session length, not the average. The median is more representative because a few very long sessions (someone leaving a tab open, for example) can skew an average upward.
Additional details:
- Only sessions with two or more pageviews are included, because single-page sessions have no measurable duration (the visitor viewed one page and left)
- Sessions are capped at 30 minutes to exclude tracking artifacts like tabs left open overnight
Page Metrics
These metrics appear in the pages section and its detail views.
Time on Page
How long visitors spend on a specific page before navigating to the next page.
How it's calculated: Measured as the time difference between consecutive page view events within the same session. If a visitor views Page A at 2:00 PM and Page B at 2:03 PM, the time on Page A is 3 minutes.
The last page of a session has no measurable time on page because there is no subsequent page view to compare against. These are excluded from the calculation.
Entries
The number of sessions that began on a specific page. This metric appears in the Entry Pages view.
How it's calculated: Counts the number of sessions where this page was the first page viewed. A high entry count means this page draws traffic on its own, from direct links, search results, or campaigns.
Exits
The number of sessions that ended on a specific page. This metric appears in the Exit Pages view.
How it's calculated: Counts the number of sessions where this page was the last page viewed before the visitor left your site.
Exit Rate
The percentage of pageviews on a specific page that were the last pageview in the session.
How it's calculated: Exits on this page divided by total pageviews on this page, expressed as a percentage. An exit rate of 30% means that 30% of the time someone views this page, it's the last page they see before leaving.
Exit rate differs from bounce rate: bounce rate measures single-page sessions, while exit rate measures the final page in sessions of any length.
Source Dimensions
These dimensions appear in the sources section. Values are captured at the start of each session (first-touch attribution within the session).
Referrer
The domain or URL that referred the visitor to your site. If a visitor clicks a link on example.com that leads to your site, the referrer is example.com. Direct visits (typing the URL, bookmarks) have no referrer.
Source
The utm_source URL parameter. Identifies the platform or property sending traffic, such as google, facebook, or newsletter.
Medium
The utm_medium URL parameter. Identifies the marketing channel, such as cpc (cost per click), organic, email, or social.
Campaign
The utm_campaign URL parameter. Identifies the specific campaign, such as spring-2026-promo or brand-awareness.
Content
The utm_content URL parameter. Used to differentiate similar links within the same campaign, such as header-link vs. footer-link, or blue-cta vs. green-cta.
Term
The utm_term URL parameter. Identifies the paid search keyword that triggered the ad, such as hipaa analytics or healthcare cdp.
Note on attribution: UTM values are captured when a session starts. If a visitor arrives via a campaign link, those UTM values apply to the entire session. If the same visitor returns later without UTM parameters, that new session has no UTM values (it would appear under the referrer dimension instead).
Realtime Metrics
Current Visitors
The number of visitors who were active on your site within the last 15 minutes. This metric appears when realtime mode is enabled.
Note: In realtime mode, the dashboard hides session-dependent metrics (views per visit, bounce rate, and visit duration). These metrics require a completed session to calculate, and realtime sessions are still in progress.
Data Freshness
The last updated indicator in the dashboard toolbar shows when the analytics data was last processed. A short delay separates when a visitor event occurs and when it appears in the dashboard.
In realtime mode, data refreshes every few seconds. In historical mode, data freshness depends on the processing pipeline, with updates within a few minutes.
Next Steps
- Web Analytics Overview: full feature walkthrough of the dashboard
- Filtering & Exporting Data: narrow your view and download your data
Need Help?
Reach out to support@oursprivacy.com if you have questions about how a metric is calculated or what it means for your site.
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