the 911 on Webmetrics - definitions
Published January 18th, 2007 in metrics. Owing to multiple requests 
this (and the following) post(s) will be about definitions of the basic webmetrics and monetization metrics - anything else you would like defined or any comments/change requests you would like to see published here please let me know
1. Unique User
The number of people who visited a certain website in a given time period. “Unique” means that the User is only counted once for the defined time period which obviously makes him/her unique.
Let´s assume that 100 people check their email on monday and 50 of these people check it again on the following day. The other 50 check it again on the monday of the following week.
- Daily Unique Users: If we count the daily Unique Users, we would come up with 200 (monday = 100, tuesday = 50, monday week 2 = 50)
- Weekly Unique Users: If we count the weekly Unique Users, we would come up with 150 (monday week 1 = 100, tuesday week 1 = 50 (same as monday, thus only counted once), monday week 2 = 50)
- Monthly Unique Users: If we count the monthly Unique Users, we would come up with a 100 (week 1 = 100, week 2 = 100 (same as week 1)
2. Pageview
Pageview (also known as page impression) tells you how often a webpage was viewed. If - for example - a user enters a URL (www.yahoo.de) or clicks on one of the links of the google search results - a webpage will open up in the browser.
This page will then count as one pageview. If the user then uses the back-button and thus returns to the formerly shown webpage then this is counted as another pageview.
3. Sessions/Visits
Sessions (visits) are periods (incidents) of activity on a website and are delineated by a certain amount of time of inactivity. Here is an example (minimum of 30 minutes of inactivity determines when the next session starts - that means that one session is max 30 mins long): A user has the following activities:
- 8:00 - Yahoo! Front Page
- 8:02 - Yahoo! Music
- 8:05 - Yahoo! Music
- 8:10 - Yahoo! Search
- 8:45 - Yahoo! Music
This user’s sessions are as follows:
- 1 session on Front Page
- 1 session on Search
- 2 sessions on Music
- 2 sessions on the Yahoo! network overall
Yahoo! Music:
Actions 2, 3, and 5 are considered. There are 40 minutes between 3 and 5, so there are 2 sessions on Mail - 2 and 3 comprise one session, and 5 the other. If the session was defined as being min 45 minutes long we would only have counted 1 session for 2, 3 and 5.
Yahoo! Network:
1-4 represent one session (no two contiguous activities are 30 or more minutes apart), and 5 represents the other. The 35 minutes between 4 and 5 define the break between the two sessions
4. Clicks
When a user clicks on a link which then performs an action (e.g. opening the next webpage) a click is counted.
Stay tuned for the next post with more definitions…
So, er, what is the definition of a “person” here? Without that, most of this is just piffle.