FIELD GUIDE

Your website stats in plain English.

Bounce rate, sessions, users, engagement rate. Each one has a plain meaning, and most are a count of how many people did one simple thing. Here is what they mean for a site you run alone, which ones mislead, and what to read instead. It is also how Moxel, a simple website analytics tool, words its numbers.

6 sources, each one read in October 2026 and linked at the bottom.

THE SHORT ANSWER

The quick version.

Most stats are a count of people in disguise. Bounce rate is how many visits did nothing. Sessions are visits, users are people, page views are pages opened. The misleading ones are bounce rate (Google changed what it means), direct traffic (often unknown traffic), averages, and percentages on a small site.

THE NUMBERS

What the jargon means.

  • Bounce rate

    is the share of visits where the person did nothing. In Google Analytics 4 that means the visit lasted 10 seconds or less, had no key event and had only one page view. If the rate is 61%, 61 of every 100 visits did nothing. Google Analytics Help

  • Engagement rate

    is the same thing turned around. It is the share of visits that did something, so a 39% engagement rate and a 61% bounce rate describe the same 100 visits. Google says bounce rate is the opposite of engagement rate. Google Analytics Help

  • Session

    is one visit. Google defines it as a period of time during which a user interacts with your site. One person who comes back on Tuesday has made a second session. Google Analytics Help

  • User

    is close to a person, though really it is a browser or a phone. Google's active users are the unique users who engaged with your site in the date range. 40 users could have made 55 sessions, because some came back. Google Analytics Help

  • Page view

    is one page opened. A person who opens your home page, then your prices page, has made two page views in one session. It is the biggest of the three counts and the least about people. Moxel

  • Conversion rate

    is how many people did the thing you wanted, out of how many could have. If 4 of 100 visitors bought, that is 4 in 100. You choose which action counts. Moxel

  • Average engagement time

    is how long your page was open and in front of someone, with background tabs left out. It comes from Google's user engagement measure, the time someone spends with a page in focus. It is an average, so read the next section before trusting it. Google Analytics Help

  • Source, or referrer

    is where the visit came from: a search, another site, a social post. Direct is the label for visits with no clear source. It does not mean someone typed your address. Google Analytics Help

WHAT TO CHANGE

Why it happens, and the fix for each.

  1. 01Bounce rate changed meaning

    Older Google Analytics counted a bounce as a visit with one page and one request. Google Analytics 4 counts a bounce as a visit that was not engaged: 10 seconds or less, no key event and one page view. Someone who read your whole article for three minutes and left can be a bounce in the old version and engaged in the new one. So a bounce rate from an old blog post, or from another tool, may not match yours. Google Analytics Help

    TRY THISCheck which version of the number you are looking at before comparing. If it matters, look at the engaged visits instead, since that is the plain count of people who did something.

  2. 02Direct traffic is often unknown traffic

    Google describes (direct) as traffic with no clear referral source. Its listed causes include links without tags, redirects and link shorteners that strip the details, offline documents like PDFs, and ad blockers, as well as people typing your address. A big direct number is a pile of unknowns, not a crowd of loyal fans. Google Analytics Help

    TRY THISAdd a short tag to the links you control, like the ones in your emails and your social bio, so those visits stop landing in the unknown pile.

  3. 03An average hides the few pages that lose people

    Average engagement time is one number across every page and every visitor. Nine pages that hold people and one that loses most of them can average out to something that looks fine. It also leaves out time in background tabs, so someone who read your page and switched away counts for less than they gave you. Google Analytics Help

    TRY THISRead the numbers per page, not for the whole site. Sort your pages by how many visits ended quickly, and start with the worst one that gets real traffic.

  4. 04A percentage on a small site is a hunch

    A 60% bounce rate sounds alarming. On a site with 10 visits in a week it is 6 people, and 2 more people staying moves it by 20 points. Percentages hide how few people sit behind them.

    TRY THISAsk how many people the number is made of before you act on it. Under about 30 people, treat it as a guess, and wait a few weeks for more before changing the page.

  5. 05Someone else's benchmark is not your page

    Most bounce rate averages come from analytics vendors' own blog posts, measured on their own customers, and they are not independent studies. They also mix home pages, articles and checkout pages, which have different jobs. A page that answers one question, like opening hours, can lose most visitors quickly and be doing its job.

    TRY THISCompare your pages with each other, and this month with last month. For more on quick exits, see why visitors leave without clicking.

ON YOUR OWN SITE

The jargon, said plainly.

Each line shows the usual name on the left and the same number as a count of people on the right.

WHAT IT MEANSfernhouse.shop, week 37
  • Avg. session duration 00:54
    People stay about 54 seconds, then go
  • Bounce rate 40%
    40 of every 100 people left without touching anything
  • Event: input_blur field=card_name
    They clicked the card name box, then clicked away
  • Returning visitors 13%
    13 of every 100 people came back later the same week
  • Exit rate /checkout 52%
    52 of every 100 people who reach payment leave without paying

no glossary needed

In Moxel every number on screen has a sentence next to it, and counts of people come before percentages. Where other tools say bounce rate 61%, Moxel says 61 out of 100 people left without touching anything. Comparisons say which way they moved and from what, like down from 22 last week. A finding that rests on a small sample is labeled a hunch when under 30, likely when under 100, and solid after that. Moxel shows where people came from, using the site the browser reports and any tags on the link, and it sets no cookies. One thing to know: daily visitor counts start afresh each day, so someone who comes Monday and Tuesday shows up once on each day.

THE LIMITS

What this cannot tell you.

The definitions here come from Google Analytics Help pages, so they describe Google's version of each metric, and other tools draw the lines in slightly different places. Google's help pages give no normal bounce rate, and the benchmarks that exist are vendor blog posts, so this guide gives none. The 10-visit example is an illustration, not a measured figure. The page on the older bounce rate describes Universal Analytics, which is not the current version.

QUESTIONS

Asked a lot.

What does bounce rate mean?
It is the share of visits where the person did nothing. In Google Analytics 4 a bounce is a visit that lasted 10 seconds or less, had no key event and had only one page view. A bounce rate of 61% means 61 of every 100 visits did nothing.
What is a good bounce rate?
There is no single good bounce rate, because it depends on the page. A page that answers one question, like opening hours, can lose most people quickly and be doing its job. A checkout or sign-up page should hold people longer. Google's own help pages give no normal figure, and the benchmark lists online are mostly vendor blog posts. Compare your pages with each other instead of with a stranger's average.
Is there an analytics tool that explains my website stats in plain English?
Moxel does. It writes each number as a sentence about people, like 61 out of 100 people left without touching anything, and ends each finding with a change you could make today. It sets no cookies, and today the install is one script tag. Google Analytics does far more, but it expects you to know its terms.
What is the easiest website analytics for a non-technical person?
Look for simple website analytics that shows counts of people instead of terms. A short list of what to change, with the page or button named, is easier to act on than a wall of charts. Moxel is built for one person running a site alone, though it is young and does less than Google Analytics.

SOURCES

Where the numbers came from.

  1. Engagement rate and bounce rateGoogle Analytics Help.
  2. Bounce rate (Universal Analytics)Google Analytics Help. Describes the older Universal Analytics version of the metric.
  3. About data collection and how sessions are countedGoogle Analytics Help.
  4. API dimensions and metrics (user metrics)Google Analytics Help.
  5. User engagementGoogle Analytics Help.
  6. Understand (direct) / (none) trafficGoogle Analytics Help.

Read in October 2026. Studies get updated, so follow the link for today's figures.

KEEP READING

More from the field guide.

How Moxel records all of this is in the docs. What it never records is on the privacy page.

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