What are visitors, sessions, and pageviews in analytics?

In Google Analytics 4 (and similar) there are 3 key audience metrics — Users, Sessions, Pageviews — often confused. The distinction is fundamental: "100 users made 1000 pageviews" is very different data than "1000 users made 1000 pageviews".

3 base metrics

Users

• Unique people who visited the site.
• One person = one user per period.
• Determined by cookies + IP + browser fingerprint.
• Same person on two devices = 2 users (without login).

Sessions

• Sequence of actions by one user in a time period.
• 30 minutes inactivity = new session.
• One user can have many sessions.
• Traffic source defined at session level.

Pageviews

• Page loads on the site.
• One session can have many pageviews.
• Refresh = new pageview.
• SPA sites need manual setup for "page" changes.

Example

One person: morning visit (1 session, 2 pageviews) + evening visit (1 session, 3 pageviews) = 1 user, 2 sessions, 5 pageviews.

Quality metrics

• Pages per session: 2–4 for blogs, 5–10 for stores.
• Average session duration: 1–3 min for blogs.
• Bounce rate: 30–50% normal, >70% problem.
• Conversion rate: depends on site type.