What is a Web site visitor? "Surely you're joking," we hear you say. "Of course, a 'visitor' is somebody who comes to your site, surfs around a bit, and leaves. That is a visitor...right?" Ah, if only it were that simple. (Part 1 of 4)

While 'visitor' is a fundamental concept in web analytics, it is far from a simple one. And the fact that this unit of measurement is so fundamental to understanding web analytics makes it particularly important that you know what it really means.

Through our years of working with customers, we've found that many folks (just like you, perhaps!) don't fully understand how 'visitors' are defined. If you don't understand that, then you're bound to get confused by the data-especially if you're comparing results from ClickTracks with results from another application. So in this article we'll examine the many faces of the 'visitor,' and show how ClickTracks defines this concept in (what we believe is) the most optimal way.

Visitors: A Continuous Series

Whether you refer to it as a "visitor," a "visit," or a "session," this concept refers to someone visiting one or more pages on your site in a continuous series. This is different from a "unique visitor", which measures the same person, (actually computer, but that's a subject for another day), who may have returned to your site for multiple sessions.

So the first question in defining a visitor session is, "what does continuous mean?" Obviously, if a person turns off their computer and then doesn't return till the next day, this constitutes two visits by one unique visitor. But what if they head out to run errands and a dental appointment, then return to their computer four hours later and continue surfing right where they left off? Is this a new visitor (i.e. session) or the same one? Does their status change if they simply grab a cup of coffee and return 20 minutes later?

Time Between Page Views

So "continuous" must be defined by the period of time between page views by the visitor. A pretty typical time is 30 minutes. That is, if a visitor hasn't viewed any pages on your site for more than thirty minutes, the next time they view a page they'll be counted as a new visitor. So what if the time is set to 15 minutes? All those people who get up and go get a cup of coffee and resume interaction with your site 20 minutes later will be counted as an additional visit.

You can test this out by going into the Advanced Options in ClickTracks and adjusting the "Maximum gap between page requests" setting. Increase the time, and you'll see your visitor count decrease. (All those java fiends are counted as one visitor instead of two). Decrease that time and the visitor count will increase. (Just kicking back for a few minutes to enjoy a couple sips of coffee will turn them into two visitors instead of one).

Fifteen is Better Than Thirty

Any good web analytics program will allow you to adjust the 'maximum gap between page request' settings, but they all come with their own default. A typical default setting is 30 minutes; ClickTracks' default setting is 15 minutes. Why? We believe it's a better reflection of people's behavior on the web. If they've left your site for 15 minutes, they are essentially in a different frame of mind when they return-perhaps the caffeine is now starting to kick in? ;-). Or more seriously, they've been shopping around, and now they are returning to make a purchase.

Basically, our assessment is that peoples' motivations for surfing can change rather quickly, so we set that timeout level lower than most other vendors. But whether you stick with the default setting of 15 minutes, adjust it to 30 to match other programs, or adjust it to any other time that you believe makes more sense, ultimately this is an arbitrary setting that simply defines a visitor. There is no "correct" setting-it's all just a matter of opinion.

Comparing Apples to Apples

Aha! So *that's* why different web analytics programs (or even different installations of ClickTracks) with different session definitions, visitor counts—not to mention all the statistics that derive from them, like average time on site and average page views per visit-have discrepancies! Keeping this in mind, we advise choosing a 'universal' session definition and sticking to it, no matter which program you're using for analysis. This way you'll always be comparing apples to apples.

But What About Session Cookies? The Cliffhanger

Of course, if you're using session cookies to define your sessions, that introduces a whole new dimension to the question, "what is a visitor?"

continued >>

What is a Visitor Anyway?   1    2    3    4

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