Why visits higher than entries using Page Name?

[beluks]

Hi,

It was my understanding that Visits should match Entries. But when I use the Page Name Dimension I get significantly lower entries than visits for each page:

Why is that?

[Brian_Johnson_]

@beluks -

That's expected.

Every page viewed during a visit will get credit as a "Visit" for that visit. Only the first page viewed will get credit as an "Entry" for that visit, as that metric reflects the entry point (ie// first page viewed).

Consider, if a visitor views just the following five pages during a single visit:

1. Paid Search Landing Page (Entry page)

2. Product Detail Page

3. Cart Page

4. Checkout Page

5. Order Confirmation Page

The report would show 1 Entry for "Paid Search Landing Page", and all five pages would show 1 Visit. ("Order Confirmation Page" would also get 1 Exit, as this was the last page encountered.)

[beluks]

In this scenario each will also get a Pageview, but if Cart Page is visited twice it would get 1 visit 2 pageviews, correct?

[Brian_Johnson_]

Correct. All pages should count as a Page View each time they are viewed.

[brentrad · Accepted solution]

Think of the Entries metric as a subset of the Visits metric. Many pages may be associated with a single visit, but only one page is the first page viewed (i.e. the entry). When applying Visits or Entries to a dimension, such as Page Name, you should always see Visits >= Entries.