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Google Analytics

Digital Strategies tracks visitor data for most Vanderbilt websites using Google Analytics. If you need a specialized report sent to you in PDF form please submit a help desk ticket and we can take care of it for you within a few days. You also have the option to use our interactive Data Studio report to quickly access data for your site. You will need to sign in with your VUNet ID.

Submit a Help Desk Ticket

Please note that the data provided comes from Google Analytics 4 (GA4) after Google’s retirement of Universal Analytics (UA) July 1, 2023.

Explanation of Common Terms

A bounce is recorded when a user visits only one page during a single session so the bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that resulted in just one pageview.

An entrance is the first page that a user visits during a single session.

An exit is recorded for the last page visited during a single session so the exit percentage is the percentage of pageviews where a page was the last one visited during a session.

A pageview is recorded when a user visits a page on your website.

A session is a single visit to your website and can include multiple pageviews, events and other interactions. A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity.

A traffic medium is a general description of the traffic source and can include one of the following values:

  • Email — sessions that originated from a URL in an email
  • Organic — sessions that origiated from an unpaid search result
  • CPC — sessions that originated from a paid search result
  • Referral — sessions that origianted from another website

A traffic source is the specific location where a session originated. If the source is "none" then the user may have entered your website URL directly into a browser window or used a bookmark. "None" is also considered a default value if Google is unable to identify a source.

Unlike a normal pageview, a unique pageview is recorded only once when a user visits a page on your website during a single session. If that user visits the page several times during their session it will only get recorded as one visit.