Google made changes in google analytics interface on April 2014 to understand the multi-device users behaviour in single reporting view.

1. A P R I L 2 0 1 4
G O O G L E A N A LY T I C S U P D AT E S

2. Note : Applied on universal analytics
1. 1. Visits become Sessions
2. 2. Unique visitors become Users
3. 3. Page / visits become Page / Sessions
4. 4. Average time duration become Average session durations
I N A P R I L 2 0 1 4 , G O O G L E M A D E C H A N G E S I N G O O G L E A N A LY T I C S I N T E R FA C E
Before April 17th
After April 17th

3. Google announced that google analytics will be able to measure across all digital touch
points such as website, mobile apps, and other devices in one dashboard thus google enable
the ability to see web and app data in the same reporting view to help us understand what
users do in all touch points.
But…
!
If you don’t send web and app data to the same property, this change doesn’t affect your
data or your account.
W H Y ?

4. U N D E R S TA N D T H E C O N C E P T O F S E S S I O N S
A N D U S E R S
!
The concept of a session in Google Analytics is important to understand because many features, reports, and metrics depend on how Analytics calculates sessions.

5. Sessions are the total number of interactions (screen views, events commerce) that have
occurred on your website, mobile app or other platforms that you are measuring within
the date range.
Users are the total number of unique individuals that have been to your website or used
your mobile app (or engaged on other platforms). Technically it is the total number of
unique user IDs that have interacted over the given time period. includes both news and
retuning users.
S E S S I O N S & U S E R S
Source : Loves data

6. A N E X A M P L E
An example of a session is if someone comes to your website and views one or more
pages. If they leave your website (or are inactive for more than 30 minutes) then the
session ends and a new session is reported when they come back to your website (or
view more pages).
Source : Avinash

7. A N E X A M P L E
For example if someone viewed your website on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday you
would have a total of 3 sessions, this one individual would then be counted as 1 user.
user%
%
Sessions:(
Screenview%
/product1%
/product2%
%
user%
Sessions:(
Event%
%
user%
Sessions:(
/news%
/product%

8. H O W W I L L T H I S A F F E C T M Y G A D ATA ?
This change only applies for visits going forward from April 17th, 2014, and your historical data will not change. GA
is bringing the definition of session in line with the common definition of a visit. If a visitor leaves your site and
returns soon after with a different traffic source value, each visit will be measured with its own session.
Additionally, by continuing a session when the user closes their browser for only a very short time, sessions will
more accurately model a user’s engagement with the website. Overall, this change may slightly increase the
number of visits. Based on our research, most users will see less than a 1% change.
!
!
1,000,000 visits 1,009,000 sessions

9. T H A N K Y O U
H T T P : / / W W W. S L I D E S H A R E . N E T / I N TA N YA N D I N I
H T T P : / / W W W. L I N K E D I N . C O M / I N / I N TA N Y
@ I N TA N Y

10. R E F E R E N C E S
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/screens
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/exceptions
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets
Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Product Manager