Glossary
Analytics: terms A–Z
Every website analytics term explained in plain English — sessions, bounce rate, conversions, UTM links, GA4, and more.
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Analytics reports are full of numbers — but what do they actually mean? This page defines every term you'll encounter, so your monthly report makes sense and you can ask better questions.
Quick summary
This page covers 50+ analytics terms from A to Z. For full analytics guides, visit the Analytics section. Use Ctrl+F / Cmd+F to jump to any term.
A–C
| Term | Plain-English definition |
|---|---|
| Acquisition | How visitors find and arrive at your website — organic search, paid ads, social media, email, direct, referral. |
| Average session duration | The average amount of time visitors spend on your site in a single session. |
| Bounce rate | In older analytics: the percentage of visitors who viewed only one page before leaving. In GA4, largely replaced by engagement rate. |
| Channel | A category of traffic source — e.g. Organic Search, Direct, Paid Search, Social, Email, Referral. |
| Conversion | A completed goal — a purchase, a form submission, a phone call click, a newsletter sign-up. See Conversions & goals explained. |
| Conversion rate | The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action. E.g. 1,000 visitors and 30 purchases = 3% conversion rate. |
| Cookie | A small file stored in a browser that lets analytics tools recognize returning visitors and track behavior across sessions. |
| Core Web Vitals | Google's set of speed and user-experience metrics: LCP, FID (now INP), and CLS. See Core Web Vitals explained. |
| Custom dimension | A user-defined data attribute added to analytics tracking — e.g. "logged-in user," "subscription plan." Requires setup. |
| Custom event | A specific user action you track beyond the defaults — e.g. video plays, PDF downloads, scroll depth. |
D–G
| Term | Plain-English definition |
|---|---|
| Dashboard | An overview screen in an analytics tool showing key metrics at a glance. |
| Data layer | A JavaScript object on your website that temporarily stores data for tools like Google Tag Manager to pick up. |
| Dimension | A descriptive attribute of your data — e.g. page title, country, device category, traffic source. |
| Direct traffic | Visits where the person typed your URL directly, used a bookmark, or the source couldn't be identified. |
| Engaged session | A GA4 metric for sessions lasting over 10 seconds, or that had a conversion event, or viewed 2+ pages. More meaningful than the old bounce rate. |
| Engagement rate | In GA4: the percentage of sessions that were "engaged" (see above). The inverse of what bounce rate used to measure. |
| Event | In GA4: any interaction tracked — page view, scroll, click, form submission, purchase. Everything is an event. |
| Filters | Rules applied to analytics reports to narrow data — e.g. show only traffic from the UK, or exclude your own team's visits. |
| GA4 | Google Analytics 4. The current version of Google Analytics, launched in 2020. Event-based, not session-based. See What is Google Analytics (GA4)?. |
| Goal | In older Analytics: a configured conversion. In GA4, called a "conversion event." |
| Google Search Console | A free Google tool showing search performance data — which queries bring people to your site, click-through rates, and technical issues. See What is Google Search Console?. |
| Google Tag Manager (GTM) | A tool that manages tracking scripts and tags on your site without requiring code changes for each one. See What is Google Tag Manager?. |
H–M
| Term | Plain-English definition |
|---|---|
| Heatmap | A visual representation of where visitors click, scroll, or spend attention on a page. Tools like Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity generate these. |
| Impression | One instance of a page appearing in search results. Tracked in Google Search Console. |
| KPI | Key Performance Indicator. A metric that matters most to your business goals — e.g. leads, purchases, phone calls. |
| Landing page | In analytics: the first page a visitor sees during a session — not necessarily your homepage. |
| Metric | A numerical measurement — page views, sessions, bounce rate, revenue. |
| Monthly active users (MAU) | The number of unique users who visited your site in a given month. |
N–R
| Term | Plain-English definition |
|---|---|
| New users | Visitors to your site who haven't visited before (based on cookies or browser fingerprinting). |
| Organic search | Traffic from unpaid search engine results. |
| Page view | One instance of a page being loaded by a visitor. |
| Paid search | Traffic from paid search ads — Google Ads or Bing Ads. |
| Property | In Google Analytics, a property is one tracked website (or app). Each property has its own data. |
| Referral traffic | Visitors who clicked a link to your site from another website. |
| Returning user | A visitor who has been to your site before (identified by cookies). |
S–Z
| Term | Plain-English definition |
|---|---|
| Scroll depth | How far down a page a visitor scrolled. A custom event, sometimes set up to fire at 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%. |
| Segment | A subset of your data filtered to a specific group — e.g. "mobile users from the UK who purchased." |
| Session | One visit to your website. A session starts when someone arrives and ends when they leave or after a period of inactivity. |
| Source / Medium | The origin of traffic (e.g. google / organic, instagram / social, newsletter / email). |
| Traffic | The total number of visits to your website over a given period. |
| Universal Analytics (UA) | The previous version of Google Analytics (before GA4). Officially shut down in 2024. |
| Users | Individual visitors to your site (identified by cookies or device signals). One user can have multiple sessions. See Users vs sessions vs views. |
| UTM parameters | Tags added to a URL to track the source of traffic in analytics. E.g. ?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email. See UTM links for campaign tracking. |
| Vanity metric | A metric that looks impressive but doesn't directly relate to business outcomes — e.g. raw page views with no conversion context. See Vanity metrics vs meaningful metrics. |
| View | In GA4: a page_view event. In older analytics, a "view" was a filtered subset of property data. |
Common questions
Related guides
- Website analytics, explained
- What is Google Analytics (GA4)?
- Key metrics, explained simply
- UTM links for campaign tracking
- Analytics terms, explained simply
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