Web Analytics Glossary

Abandonment - the number of customers who drop off during the process of conversion, like a half filled form or incomplete purchase.

Acquisition - the process of attracting visitors to a website or the number of visitors arrived.

Affiliate Marketing - a marketing methodology were other websites direct sales traffic to sell another merchants products for a commission.

Analytics - the process of converting data in information useful for decision making

Bounce Rate - the percentage of visitors entering the site and leaving the same page.

Click Through - an instance of a click on a link leading to another section of the site or page, or another website.

Click Through Rate - the number of clicks on a link or banner / number of impressions.

Conversion - a completed action which meets to intended purpose of a website 'call to action' such as - subscribe to a newsletter, buy a product, fill a form etc

Conversion Rate - the percentage of visitors who successfully convert / total visitors to page.

Conversion Funnel - a defined path [series of steps or pages] for a visitor to reach the final objective, such as purchasing a product, or filling up a form.

Cookie - a text-only string of information transfered from a website to the cookie file of the browser on a computer's hard disk, so that the website can remember who you are, your preferences and past history. A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the "lifetime" of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number.

Cookie Lifetime - cookies are either temporary cookies, which only remain in the cookie file of your browser until you leave the site, or persistent cookies, which remain for a period specified by the cookie owner. This could be anytime from a few minutes to forever. Googles current cookie lifetime is 2 years...and many believe this is too long.

Crawler [Bot] - an automated program used primarily by search engines and other services to gather information from the World Wide Web.

Entry Page - the first page viewed by a visitor while browsing through a website.

Exit Page - the last page viewed; the page from which the visitor exited the website.

Filters - a set of rules to restrict the parameters of a large volume of data, such as date range, gender, location.

First Party Cookie - cookies placed by websites unlike third party cookies placed by vendors. First party cookies are understood to be secure and reliable.

Hit - any request by the browser to the web server. A web page is a collection of different components like HTML, Images and CSS, each registering as a separate hit with every single request for the page.

Impression - a single view of an online advertisement is counted as an impression.

Key Performance Indicators - main parameters used to measure the performance of a website and the success of marketing strategies.

Keywords - words and phrases entered in a search engine to reach a result page.

Log Files - a text file created in the server capturing all activity on the website. This file is the primary source of data for analysis.

Organic Search - users find results through unpaid search engines, unlike PPC.

Page Duration - time spent by visitor on a web page.

Page Tags - JavaScript codes embedded in the web page to be executed by the browser. Tags are used to generate log files used by Web Analytics Tools.

Page Views - a rendering of the web page by the server.

Path Analysis - analysis of how visitors travel through a website, providing valuable information on site navigation and user preferences.

PPC - Pay per click or paid search - where the advertiser pays based on the number of clicks on the advertisement. Google and Overture are two popular paid search engines.

Referrer - Websites, Search Engines or Directories or any others identifiable as the origin of the visitor.

Return Visitor - A visitor who can be identified with multiple visits, either through cookies or authentication.

Search Analytics - Analyzing search terms and behavior of visitors using the website search engine.

Session - The record of a single visitor browsing through the website. It includes an entry page, navigation and exit pages.

Stickiness - A website’s capability to retain visitors, measured as number of pages visited per session and time spent on website.

Visitor - Also called unique visitor, is understood as an individual visiting the website over a specified period of time. A visit is understood as two consecutive actions by a visitor within a span of 30 minutes.

Visitor Segmentation - The process of segregating and studying visitors based on various behavior patterns.

Web Analytics - The process of collection, measurement and analysis of user activity on a website to understand and help achieve the intended objective of the website.