Google Analytics Session Definition Changed

This got past me last month, and wanted to make sure all my “loyal” (hah, no offense but most of you are from India just looking for a fix to something) readers saw this.

As of August 11, 2011 Google changed the way Sessions are defined.

The old model ended a session when one of the following occurred:

• More than 30 minutes between pageviews
• At the end of a day (local time midnight)
• When a visitor closes their browser

In the newer version, Google ends a session when:

• More than 30 minutes between pageviews (same)
• At the end of a day (local time midnight, same)
• When any traffic source value for the user changes.  This includes: utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content, utm_id, utm_campaign, and gclid.

So.. for me this has meant a drop of 36 visits out of about 3000 visits (negligible when you assume minor fluctuations in “quality” of content).  This is in line with Google’s statement that it will change your visitors by about 1%.

 

Tags: Analytics, Google, Google Analytics

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