Glossary
Every number in Otus is built from the same few definitions. This page explains each one, the formula behind it, and how it relates to the others, so you know exactly what you're looking at.
Engagement & bounce
Session
A visit to your site: a visitor's activity grouped together until they've been inactive for 30 minutes. A session only counts when it includes at least one pageview in the selected date range. Activity without a pageview (for example engaged time sent just after midnight for a page viewed the day before) belongs to that earlier session and doesn't create a new one.
This same definition is used everywhere in Otus: the Sessions numbers, every per-session average, every rate, funnels and realtime.
A session starts at its first pageview in the range. Its channel, source, landing page, country and device all come from that first pageview, so each session counts once in every breakdown and the rows add up to your total sessions.
Engaged session
A session in which the visitor showed real interest. A session is engaged when it had at least one of:
- more than 10 seconds of active time (the tab was visible and focused),
- 2 or more pageviews, or
- at least one conversion.
This is the same definition Google Analytics 4 uses.
Engagement rate
The share of sessions that were engaged.
Engagement rate = engaged sessions ÷ sessions
On the pages table, a page's engagement rate is the share of the sessions that viewed that page that were engaged. Engagement is judged over the whole session, not only the time spent on that page.
Bounce rate
The share of sessions that were not engaged: the visitor left quickly, viewed only one page and didn't convert.
Bounce rate = 100% − engagement rate
Bounce rate and engagement rate always add up to 100%. A visitor who reads a single article for two minutes is engaged, so that visit is not a bounce. This matches Google Analytics 4. Older tools counted every single-page visit as a bounce, so their bounce rates are usually higher.
Engagement time
The total active time visitors spent on your site. Only foreground time counts: time in a background tab or with the window minimised is excluded. The averages below are built from this total. Engagement time is the only time metric in Otus: there's no "session duration", which would include idle time.
Avg. engagement time per session
How long visitors actively spend on your site per visit.
Avg. engagement time per session = engagement time ÷ sessions
Sessions without any engaged time count as 0 seconds. The Overview card can also show it per user (engagement time ÷ users), which is estimated when some users are counted as sessions.
Avg. time on page
How long visitors actively spend on a page per visit to that page. A page visit is one session viewing one page; a session that views three pages has three page visits.
Avg. time on page = engagement time ÷ page visits
Page visits without any engaged time count as 0 seconds. Engaged time on a page that has no pageview in the selected range (for example a page viewed just before midnight) isn't part of any page visit, so it's left out here.
Dashboard metrics
Pageviews
Every page load, plus every navigation to a new path in a single-page app. A pageview counts on the day the visitor's browser recorded it, even if it reached our servers a moment later (just after midnight, for example).
Users
The number of different people who visited. With full tracking and analytics consent, a visitor is recognised across sessions. Otherwise each session counts as one user, because Otus can't tell whether two sessions belong to the same person. Reports mark users as estimated whenever that happens: always on cookieless sites, and on full-tracking sites when some visitors didn't give analytics consent. The tooltip shows what share of sessions could be identified.
Otus only uses the word "users" for counts of people: anything that counts visits is labelled "sessions".
Sessions
The number of sessions in the selected period: visits with at least one pageview.
Views per visit
The average number of pages viewed in a session.
Views per visit = pageviews ÷ sessions
Shown as Pageviews / Session on the Engagement report.
New vs. returning users
- New: the user's first-ever visit falls within the selected period.
- Returning: the user came back during the selected period after an earlier visit.
A user can be both in the same period. Only sessions with a pageview count. Requires full tracking. See the Overview report for details.
Event totals
Conversions, revenue, orders and event counts only include events that happened in a session (a visit with at least one pageview in the range), the same rule as every session count. Refunds are the exception and always count, because they're usually sent from a back office or server without a pageview.
Conversions
The number of times an event you've marked as a goal happened, such as sign_up or purchase. Conversions count events: a session that converts twice adds 2.
Conversion rate
The share of sessions with at least one conversion.
Conversion rate = sessions with a conversion ÷ sessions
A session that converts twice adds 2 to conversions but counts once here, so you can't calculate the rate from the conversions column.
Share of events
On the Events report: the share of all tracked events (excluding pageviews) that are conversions. It's a different metric from the conversion rate, which is about sessions.
Share of events = conversions ÷ events
Completion rate
On the Funnels report: the share of sessions that entered the funnel and completed every step.
Completion rate = sessions that completed the last step ÷ sessions that entered
Revenue
The total value of all purchase events in the period. See e-commerce tracking.
Orders and average order value
Orders count every purchase event. Average order value = revenue ÷ orders.
Net revenue
Net revenue = revenue − refunds
Refunds count in the period they happen, not in the period of the original purchase.
Landing pages
The landing page is the first page of a session. Landing totals count sessions per page: for example / 100 landings and /pricing 75.
Exit rate
How often a page was the last page viewed in a session.
Exit rate = sessions whose last pageview was the page ÷ pageviews of the page
Shares
Percentages like "share of sessions" for countries, devices, products or search queries are calculated against the real total for the period, not just the rows shown, so they stay correct when a list is cut off.
Active sessions
On the Realtime report: sessions with any activity in the last 5 minutes and a pageview. Someone reading a long article still counts; a session kept alive only by custom events firing on a timer doesn't.
Tracking concepts
Visitor
A person browsing your site. Whether Otus can recognise the same visitor across sessions depends on the tracking mode.
Tracking modes
- Cookieless (default): no cookies or identifiers are stored in the browser. Sessions are recognised with a daily-changing, server-side hash, so returning visitors can't be recognised.
- Full tracking: with analytics consent, a visitor ID is stored in the browser, which enables returning-visitor metrics.
See Cookieless vs. full tracking.
Events
Anything that happens on your site that Otus records. page_view, engagement and outbound_click are tracked automatically; others are standard or custom events you send yourself.
Goals
An event you've marked as important in Site settings → Events & Conversions. Every occurrence counts as a conversion, and any session with a goal counts as engaged.
Channels
The predefined traffic-source categories (Direct, Organic Search, Paid Search, …) assigned to every visit. A session's channel is taken from how it started. See Channels.
UTM parameters
Tags you add to campaign links (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, …) so Otus can attribute visits to the right source and channel. See UTM parameters.
Comparison period & deltas
When you compare against an earlier period, each metric shows a delta: the change compared with that period, as a relative percentage. For rates that's the relative change of the rate itself: a bounce rate going from 40% to 44% shows as +10%, not +4 points.
- Deltas are calculated from the exact values, before rounding. An average of 4.04s versus 4.0s shows the same "4s" twice, but a +1% change.
- When the earlier value was zero, no percentage is possible and the delta shows –. Otus doesn't say "new": a page with views in week 1, none in week 2 and views again in week 3 isn't new.
- In tables, every row is compared with its own value in the earlier period, even if it wasn't among the top rows back then.
- The AI Analyst and AI Chat describe changes in rates in percentage points ("+4pp") in their written text, because that's how analysts talk about rates.
Date & time
Site timezone
Every report uses the timezone set in your site's settings. Days, and the daily points in charts, run from midnight to midnight in that timezone.
Date ranges
A date range includes the whole start day and the whole end day. "Last 7 days" ends today, in your site's timezone.
Which day things count on
In daily charts, counts of sessions (sessions, users, engaged sessions, bounce rate, conversion rate) go on the day the session started (its first pageview). Counts of events (pageviews, conversions, revenue, engagement time) go on the day the event happened. A visit from 23:50 to 00:10 is one session on the first day, but a pageview at 00:05 counts on the second day.
Sessions at the edge of a range
Only events inside the date range are counted. A session that runs across the start or end of the range (for example a visit from 23:50 to 00:10) only contributes the events inside the range, and only counts as a session if it has a pageview inside the range.
Known limitation: visits across midnight (UTC)
In cookieless mode, Otus recognises a visit with a privacy-friendly hash that changes every day at midnight UTC. A visit that's still going at that moment is split into two sessions. A fix for sites using full tracking is planned.