How Can a Page Have More Unique Pageviews than Total Pageviews?
-
The question and the attached image say it all... how is this possible?
-
tool: the asynchronous tracking code from Google Analytics
-
It seems very improbable, but it's possible (not sure how I'd check for incognito visitors... I'll try to figure this out sometime in the next few weeks).
I tell you what - this specific issue itself is confounding, but the bigger problem is the small but evolving perception that all of the analytics data behind my advice is untrustworthy (a client's growing suspicion that "if this GA data is wrong, then all GA data must be wrong; and Glenn's advice, being based on this data, is invalid". I can just show all the new rankings we get for proof in the pudding, but I just personally want to figure this out theoretically to eliminate any remaining buried seeds of insecurity.... lol!
-
I've passed this one around internally for ideas too. Is this in a subject area where many people might be visiting in incognito mode? It is a bit of a head scratcher!
-
The client never noticed, but is about to on an update report (see attached).
Still happening, still baffling... really hoping someone can help me figure this out... several dozen people I've discussed this with don't believe me, see this, then are baffled too --
-
I haven't seen this before myself, and just now saw this question. What happens if you set the date period to less than a month? Do the numbers look better then? What about if you show things by day instead of week -- is there a day that is out of whack?
Did the client ever notice this and ask?
-
Thanks - that makes a lot of sense, holycap.
Yup - This report is not for a custom segment, and is beyond a month.
Right again, this image is for an infrequently visited page -- so that low volume could lead to bigger margins of error. I would expect those margins of error to match, though, for pageviews and unique pageviews - wouldn't you? Why would such similar metrics have such varying margins of error?
-
Mad props for replying --
This screenshot is from Google Analytics. My server logs, and other analytics software (clicky) don't report the same discrepancy. Since the owners of this website only check GA, I just wanted to figure this out so I can answer their question if they ever ask).
The code is installed correctly. It hurt a little to even consider that theory - though I did review the site firsthand and check....thanks for keeping me humble, tho! This site's bounce rate is about 12%, so I'm pretty sure it's not because of the visitor pressing the backbutton before the page loads (pageload lasts 2 seconds on average, and 95%+ of visitors spend over 10 seconds).
Still unresolved.... and this question is one of the few that seems to stick with me, since this one bizarre example makes all of GA seem less trustworthy. Lemme know if any other ideas spring up ---- Until then, I'll be like the attached images.
Thanks again --hands_twiddling_thumbs_lg_clr.gif image11.gif f923589989ee7d2c47f9106d3387db29b9b2278.gif
-
Another thing he could consider is the fact that this is an Analytic pull of a date range that looks to be beyond a month, so if this is a custom segment, it might be generating a fast access report that's known to be inaccurate in its ballpark estimate at times, especially when numbers are this low, the margin of error can be much bigger.
-
Magic. Obviously.
I can't give you a definite answer but I imagine what is happening is that the data points are being pulled two different ways. Perhaps unique pageviews are being pulled from requests for a URL but total pageviews are being pulled from tracking code and the code isn't loading because the code is put in wrong or the user hits the browser's back button before the page loads.
Which tool are you using?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Analytics not Working on all pages despite many attempts
Hey gang, So this problem has been going on for months. None of our landing pages track, but all of our blog pages do. I've tried GA plugins, (we are on wordpress) and just now even put the code in the theme header script. Still to no avail. I just checked right now, and the blog pages have the global GA code, but now I noticed not even the home page has the code! Could it be something to do with my theme? I tried to pay a guy on upwork to fix but he couldn't fix it either. Thank you for you help!
Reporting & Analytics | | Meier0 -
Why few pages have more than 100% bounce rate?
Hello All, For my ecommerce site approx more than 30k products I have. In Google Analytic approx daily for few products approx 10-15 products bounce rate show 300%, 200%, 150%, 140%, 125% how? and what is the solution? Product page daily change. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Johny123450 -
How does Google measure page position in Webmasters?
Does anyone know exactly how Google measures page position in Webmaster Tools? For example: In Google Webmaster Tools, we had a product which on the 22/12/15 was at position 7, and then dropped to position 112 on the 30/12/15. It then rose back up to position 7 on the 6/01/16 and then down to position 25 on the 16/01/16. What does this mean and why?
Reporting & Analytics | | CostumeD0 -
Why would page views per visitor suddenly increase?
My website traffic is growing by about 1% a week. It has a fairly stable page views/visitor of about 1.69. There's normally very little variability in this As we sell an industrial product. Today page views jumped by 50% and so did page views/visitor but visitor numbers stayed the same. I dont have a useful hypothesis to explain this. Analytics shows me that the traffic source, country of origin and pages viewed are pretty much the same as normal. There's been no substantive change to the site (today we changed the text in a widget to link to a new page - and no one visited it). It doesn't look like 1 person has gone through the whole site as that would skew the distribution of page views by country So why would user behavour suddenly change? I'll look at it for the rest of the week but in 7 years of looking after this website I haven't seen anything like this before.
Reporting & Analytics | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
How is it possible that this site has a higher page authority than my site?
Judging by open site explorer, I'm crushing my competitor in every imaginable way. And yet, somehow they have a higher page authority than me and, consequently, are ranking higher than me. How is this possible? My site is on the left: 40atcpP.png
Reporting & Analytics | | ScottMcPherson0 -
Why such a high page rank with so low metrics in OSE
Hi,
Reporting & Analytics | | sebastiankoch
The website is:
www.s123parka123ble.com (remove the 123) All websites I have ever seen with similar metrics in OSE have normally a PR of 2 or 3 or max 4. This one is PR 5 and I would like to know why. I also noticed that they do not redirect the urls without www. to www. Which is normally bad ... can it be good for some reason in this case? It is PR 5 since a long time I just can´t get why it is PR 5. Please have a look. Thanks!0 -
OSE shows URLs redirecting to our custom created error page, is this a problem?.
When I check the link metrics for my product pages in OSE, it shows a message saying that the page redirects to our custom error page. This page was recently created to display when there is an error with the website. Do I need to be concerned that OSE is seeing all product pages as redirecting to this error page? Will it affect page authority etc,? I have attached a screen shot of the message that OSE displays for reference. YWbpM.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | pugh0