Glossary

Visitor

In the context of web traffic and analytics, a visitor is defined as a single person who visits a website. This metric is typically used to measure the number of people coming to your site for the first time, although it can also be used to measure the number of returning visitors.

What is a website visitor in analytics?

A visitor is someone who visits your website. This can be their first visit or a returning visit. So, what is a website visit versus a website visitor? Simply put, a visit is a measure of how many times someone has come to your site, while a visitor is a measure of how many users have come to your site.

The net worth of a single website visitor varies greatly, but to determine yours, use this formula: Revenue / Total Web Visitors = Visitor Value​​.

What’s the difference between a visitor and a unique visitor?

A unique visitor refers to one specific user. Ideally, unique visitors are the same as visitors, but it depends on how your analytics tool classifies them. If you see two visitors to your website, they could in reality be from one unique visitor using two different browsers.

Are visitors different from sessions and pageviews?

Yes. A session is a group of interactions that take place on your website within a given time frame. A pageview is counted whenever a user loads or reloads a page. So, if a visitor goes to your site and views three pages, that would count as one visitor, one session, and three pageviews

How are visitors tracked in Parse.ly?

Parse.ly uses first-party cookies to track visitors in real time. Our JavaScript code places a cookie on a user’s browser when they visit one of our customers’ sites. Whenever that user visits another site that also uses Parse.ly, we’re able to recognize them and attribute their behavior as a single visitor. This process yields a better picture of direct website traffic that is less skewed by shadow traffic

Tracking visitor analytics is valuable because it offers insights into who is visiting your site, the pages they’re viewing, and how long they’re staying. This information can help you make better decisions about what content to produce, what marketing campaigns to run, and where to allocate your resources.