I tried to validate whether my assumption regarding the relationship between the different kinds of visits is correct. We use Matomo 4.10.1 to collect user statistics from our website.
“new visits + returning visits” matches the number of visits recorded
BUT
“unique new visitors + unique returning visitors” is larger than the number of unique visitors recorded.
Hi @WBreustedt,
Your graph is not true. A visitor is not the same as a visit.
If as a visitor I visit your site during 10 minutes at 08:00, then I come back at 11:00. Then I will be counted as one unique visitor who did 2 visits…
they are not the same, but they are nevertheless related. Hence the subset relationship.
The FAQ posts I cited above explain how.
From what I gather:
A unique visitor that visits my page for the very first time is recorded as a new visit.
Whenever a unique visitor visits my page (for a second, a third, a fourth time at least more than 30 minutes after the prior visit) the visitor’s visit is counted as a returning visit.
Together, the unique visitors’ new (aka 1st) visits and their returning visits make up all of the persons’ visits to my website.
A unique visitor that visits my page for the very first time is recorded as a unique new visitor (which is the same as a new visit, judging from the numbers recorded by Matomo on our page).
A unique visitor that visits my page for the second, third, fourth time at least more than 30 minutes after the prior visit is considered a unique returning visitor.
Together, the unique new visitors and unique returning visitors should add up to the number of unique visitors. But they don’t. I assume this is because there are multiple ways to determine whether a unique visitor returns to the website (https://matomo.org/faq/general/faq_21418/) but I am not sure, hence my post.
Maybe if a user visits for the first time your site, then comes back during the same day (as new visit), it is counted twice in term of visitor categories… Once as new visitor and once as returning visitor?
What is the opinion of @innocraft about this?
Not sure how to test it exactly. If i create a segment of Visitors with more than one Visits, according to your explanation I would expect to see the number of unique new visitors to be more than 0, and this doesn’t happen.
