Google Analytics 4: Glossary of Terms

Google Analytics 4 can feel like learning a new language. Here are the most important terms you’ll encounter, explained in plain English.

Users & Audience

Active Users People who visited your site during a specific time period. This is now the default user metric in GA4. If someone visits your site on Monday and again on Friday, they count as one active user for the week.

New Users People visiting your site for the first time. GA4 tracks this using cookies, so if someone clears their browser data or visits from a different device, they might be counted as “new” again.

Returning Users People who have visited your site before. This is calculated by subtracting new users from total users.

User Engagement How actively people interact with your site. GA4 considers someone engaged if they stay on your site for at least 10 seconds, view multiple pages, or trigger a conversion event.

Traffic & Sessions

Sessions A visit to your website. A session starts when someone lands on your site and ends after 30 minutes of inactivity or at midnight. If someone leaves your site and comes back 20 minutes later, it’s still the same session. If they come back an hour later, it’s a new session.

Engaged Sessions Sessions where users stayed for at least 10 seconds, viewed multiple pages, or completed a conversion. This metric helps you understand which visits were actually meaningful vs. people who bounced immediately.

Engagement Rate The percentage of sessions that were engaged. If you have 100 sessions and 75 were engaged, your engagement rate is 75%.

Bounce Rate The opposite of engagement rate. The percentage of sessions where people didn’t engage at all—they left quickly without interacting. In GA4, a bounce is more forgiving than in older versions of Analytics.

Average Session Duration How long the typical session lasts on your site. This is calculated only for engaged sessions.

Traffic Source / Medium Where your visitors came from. Source is the specific place (like google.com or facebook.com). Medium is the general category (like organic search, social, email, or referral).

Content & Pages

Views How many times a page or screen was viewed. If someone visits your homepage three times in one session, that’s three views.

Users How many individual people viewed a page, regardless of how many times they viewed it.

Event Count How many times a specific event happened. Events track actions like page views, button clicks, form submissions, or video plays.

Conversions Events you’ve marked as important goals. This could be donations, form submissions, newsletter signups, or any action that matters to your organization. You define what counts as a conversion.

Landing Page The first page someone sees when they arrive at your site. If someone comes to your site from Google and lands on your “Volunteer” page, that’s their landing page for that session.

Exit Page The last page someone viewed before leaving your site.

Events

Event Any interaction on your website that GA4 tracks. Page views, clicks, scrolls, video plays, downloads—these are all events. GA4 is built entirely around events, unlike older versions of Analytics.

Event Parameters Additional details about an event. For example, a “page_view” event includes parameters like page_location (the URL) and page_title (the page’s title).

Custom Event An event you create to track something specific to your site, like clicking your donation button or downloading a PDF.

Dimensions & Metrics

Dimension A characteristic or attribute of your data. Examples: page title, city, device type, traffic source. Dimensions are the “labels” that describe your data.

Metric A number that measures something. Examples: users, sessions, conversions, page views. Metrics are the actual counts and calculations.

Think of it this way: “250 users from Philadelphia viewed your donation page” breaks down as:

• 250 = metric (the number)
• Users = metric type
• Philadelphia = dimension (the label)
• Donation page = dimension (another label)

Audience Behavior

Active Users (1-day, 7-day, 28-day) How many people visited during the last day, week, or month. This helps you understand if your audience is growing or shrinking over time.

User Lifetime How long someone remains a user of your site, from their first visit to their most recent visit.

Average Engagement Time per Session How long users actively engage with your content during a typical session. This only counts time when your site is in focus—not when it’s in a background tab.

Views per Session How many pages the average visitor looks at during a session. Higher numbers suggest people are exploring your site rather than leaving after one page.

Conversions & Goals

Conversion Rate The percentage of sessions that resulted in a conversion. If you had 1,000 sessions and 50 donations, your donation conversion rate is 5%.

Key Events GA4’s term for conversions. These are the events you’ve marked as most important to track.

Technical Terms

Data Stream The connection between your website and GA4. You need at least one data stream set up for GA4 to collect data from your site.

Property Your GA4 account for a specific website or app. One organization might have multiple properties (one for the main site, one for a subdomain, etc.).

Real-time Shows what’s happening on your site right now—who’s visiting, what pages they’re on, and where they came from. Updates every few seconds.

Exploration GA4’s tool for creating custom reports. This is where you dig deeper into your data with filters and segments.

Quick Reference Chart

Keep this glossary handy as you explore GA4. The terminology takes some getting used to, but once you understand these core concepts, the reports will start making a lot more sense.