Previous Page simension - Same URL as current

[Yasnaia]

I was trying to analyze the pages that led to a particular page of my client's website and for that I used the "Previous Page" dimension, but then the first result showed the same url I am trying to analyze. Any explanations for that? The only thing that comes to my mind is that it's the result of users directly typing the url or maybe page reloads after the session expires. Any recommendations?

[Nick_Walter]

There are a few things that could happen here that I've seen before. One if there are multiple calls happening at the same time both passing a page name, If there is some sort of page reload or redirect this can happen as well. 

Additionally there is always user actions like reloading/refreshing the page or leaving the tab and coming back after a new visit started.

For this I would look at the flow visualization as well that may help answer the question your looking for. I also like to debug the experience so I can see exactly what is happening live. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I agree with what @Nick_Walter said here... the most likely scenario is that the page is reloaded/refreshed.

Do you have any sort of cookie consent on your site? When users choose a behaviour, is it possible that a second page view is firing? That could lead to a lot of inflated traffic and result in a higher than normal "previous page is the same as the current page" scenarios.

I second trying to debug your flows, see what and how pages are triggered. Look at the type of page that has this happening and try to put yourself in the shoes of your audience... is this a page that is likely to encourage refreshing to get new content? Are there other data points you can correlate by that might help you see what is happening?

[k6ivupuu_k]

In addition to what has been named, there are many possibilities that could exist there, most of them depend on your customer site. Do they log in perhaps on that page? Is there a virtual pageload happening? Can the same URL be used to trigger several different views (like it is for my current employers' site). We know literally nothing about the setup.

So, we can only guess the reasons, but You have many ways to analyze the actual behaviour of your customers (page viewers). In addition to table views: 

1. Flow visualizations with/without repeats - you will get an understanding of the previous page,

2. Flow visualizations with another element as the "before" step, see what clicks lead to your page (what was the previous click name or interaction name before the page load) 

3. You can go positively crazy with creating segments, you can try to filter out e.g. "page name X followed within 1 hits by page name X". 

4. Build fallouts, see what is going on there.

So, I would try to focus on the "how" did you try to answer your question? I think this could bring the best out of the community.