In Google Analytics, why are Unique Pageviews higher than Sessions if it can only fire once per session?

Question

I think I get the different between Users, Sessions, and Pageviews in Google Analytics.

A Visitor/ User can start several sessions even in the same day, of a website ... and each session is comprised of visiting many pages, possibly more than once.

Here's the confusion ... what the frack is the difference between Unique PageViews and Sessions, when applied against a certain page?

A Unique Pageview is basically --- was the page viewed at least ONCE during the session? If yes, +1, else, +0. Isn't that IDENTICAL to sessions?

At least, for an individual page.

I know you can visit 4 unique pages during a session, but a specific page should have the two things equal, right?

Answer 1

This is my understanding:

User A visits Page P1:

Page	Page views	Unique page views	User	Session
P1	1	1	1	1

Same session, user A visits page P2 from page 1 (P1):

Page	Page views	Unique page views	User	Session
P2	1	1	1	0

Notice the session count for page P2 does not increase (0) but unique page views for page P2 is 1.

I believe, because of cases like the above unique page views are greater than sessions count.

You can use this simulator for further understanding.

Answer 2

Here is your actual answer, I think! :) http://help.analyticsedge.com/googleanalytics/misunderstood-metrics-sessions-for-pages/

Basically, if you filter sessions results down to a page, you will see a count of how many sessions started on that page. (Sessions only get attached to the Entrance page).

Cheers.

Answer 3

This behaviour is expected behaviour.

The sessions count is the number of sessions who landed on that screen/page. The unique page views are the number of sessions who viewed that page.

Eg.

Home screen: 100(sessions) 1000(unique page views) Interpretation: 100 sessions landed on the home screen and 1000 sessions viewed the home screen( remaining 900 landed on some other screen but eventually viewed the home screen.

Answer 4

The report seems to be presenting the correct data.

Here is how I understand it : - For a given page, the Unique PageView counts the number of sessions that displayed this page one or more times. Unique Pageviews is the number of sessions during which the specified page was viewed at least once. A unique pageview is counted for each page URL + page Title combination. But it is not how it shows in the case you have presented

Vs

In actual it shows Sessions and Unique Pageviews different.

Our explanation is that the unique pageviews are being shown in funnel which is same as Sessions but when applying filters based on session, you are being shown the session with Entrances on that page for some reason.

To confirm this – you can test adding a segment as shown below and match the output numbers. 1. When you check segment on a page, the session count is 5562 (as the report) I.e. all sessions in which that page was viewed.

2. When you check segment on a landing page, the session count is 600 (close to the filter report 589) I.e. all sessions in which that page was the landing page.

Ideally we also expect to see the number to be 5562, in the filtered view under the ‘sessions’ metric when we filter on a single page. Also, we expect the sessions to be same as unique pageviews but somehow the metric shown is referring to the ‘sessions that started with that page’ i.e. entrances.

Answer 5

The Unique Pageviews metric is an approximation of how many times the page has been viewed by a unique user in a given time period. By default, Google Analytics tracking cookie will remember a user on a device for 30 days, unless the user deletes cookies or uses a different device.

Sessions, on the other hand map to Entrances are is a metric that approximates how many times a given page-based dimension was the first hit of a session. A session is defined as an active period of browsing activity by a user of your site. After the session is initiated (someone comes to your site), the session timer will continue to run until either a)the user leaves your site, or b)there is a period of inactivity that lasts for 30 minutes. In either of those cases, the session will be closed. A new session would start when the user resumes activity after that 30 minute period of inactivity, or when they come back to your site.