Read the overview
How many people came, where they came from, which pages worked and whether they did what you wanted, in one screen.
How-to guide6 min read
Open a site from Sites, or from the menu at the top of the sidebar, to see its overview. It starts with the site's numbers and a chart of the period, and each part below answers one question in a sentence, with a chart or a list. Hover over any chart to read its exact numbers.
Choose the period
The period menu at the top right shows Today, the Last 7 days, 30 days, 90 days or 12 months, or Custom dates you pick. The last 30 days are shown when you open a site.
Compare puts the period before beside it: the faint grey line on the chart, and the change under each number. Today is compared with yesterday up to the same hour. Switch it off to see the period on its own.
Days run from midnight to midnight in the site's time zone, which you choose under Site settings. Times on hourly charts are in that zone too.
What the numbers mean
| Number | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Visitors | Different people, each counted once a day. Someone who comes on Monday and Tuesday counts twice. |
| Visits | Times someone came. A visit ends after 30 minutes without activity. |
| Page views | Every page opened, including pages opened again. |
| Average visit | How long a visit lasted, from its first page to its last activity. |
| Bounce rate | The share of visits that saw only one page. Lower usually means people found more to read. |
| Goal completions | Visits that did what one of your goals asks. A visit that completes two goals counts twice. |
A green change is better than before and a red one is worse. For bounce rate, a fall is better.
Each number has a small line of how it went day by day, or hour by hour for Today. Select a number, such as Page views or Bounce rate, to show it on the big chart; Visitors is shown when you open the overview. The day or hour that is still running is drawn as a dashed line, since it isn't over yet.
Last week in a few words
Last week in a few words sums up the week from Monday to Sunday in a few plain sentences: how many people came against the week before, where most came from, the page seen by the most people and how your goals did. It shows when no filter is chosen.
When the summary is written with AI, it says so. The AI is given only the week's numbers, and Insights Orbit keeps what it writes only when every number in it is one of those, so it can't add numbers of its own. When there is no written summary, the same facts are shown as plain sentences made without AI.
Worth a look
Worth a look lists what stands out in the last weeks, most urgent first, each with its numbers, why it was suggested and a link to the detail:
- a goal that was completed at least once a day on average in the week before and not once yesterday, which often means a broken form
- a page that lost at least 30% of the visits that started on it from search engines, against the week before
- a busy page, seen by at least 50 people in the last 28 days, after which no visit completed a goal
- a site that sent at least twice as many visits as the week before, or that is new and sent at least 20
Suggestions come from the numbers alone, never from AI, and are in the Growth plan and up.
Where they came from and which pages worked
Where they came from shows each source's share of the visits as one bar, then the list of sources with their visits. Each source keeps its colour everywhere, so Search looks the same here and under Sources.
Which pages worked lists the pages seen by the most people, with a small line of their visitors per day on wide screens.
When people visit
For a period of 7 days or more, When people visit shows the visits that started in each hour of each day of the week, in the site's time zone. Darker squares had more visits. Use it to choose when to publish, send a newsletter or run a campaign.
Did they do what you wanted
Each goal shows its conversion, the share of visits that completed it, as a ring, with its completions and, when you compare, the change on before. Select a goal to open it. Without goals, the part offers to add one.
Show only some visits
Select a source, page or country in any table to show only those visits. The filter appears above the report as Showing only and stays as you move to Pages, Sources or Goals. Select the cross to remove it. The address in your browser includes the filters and the period, so you can send it to a colleague.
Right now
Right now shows the people on the site in the last 30 minutes, the page views in each of those minutes as small bars, and the page each person is on. It updates every 30 seconds while the screen is open.
When numbers look low
- Visitors whose ad blocker blocks the script are not counted. Serve the script from your own domain to lose fewer.
- Browsers that ask not to be tracked, bots and your excluded addresses are left out on purpose. What was left out beside the overview says how many.
- If Visitors are estimated shows under the chart, the period includes part of a day, and someone who came in two different hours may count twice.
Marks on the chart
When the site is connected to a CMS Orbit space, a dot on the bottom of the chart marks each day a page, campaign or release was published in its live environment. Hover over the day to see what was published; the most recent are also listed under the chart. A change in visits can then be read next to what changed on the website. See Use with CMS Orbit.
On your phone
The Orbit app for iPhone has Insights Orbit built in. Open Insights to see each site's visitors for the last 7 days, then a site's overview: its numbers with the period before, a chart with the previous period behind it, sources, top pages, goals and who is on the site right now. Choose today, 7, 30 or 90 days or 12 months. Filters, custom periods and the other reports stay on the web. Alerts are listed in the app; change them on the web.
A site still waiting for its first visit shows the script, for you to copy or share with whoever runs the website.
Was this page helpful?