Analytics Glossary

Page Views

The most fundamental web analytics metric — every page load, counted.

A page view is recorded every time a visitor loads a page on your website. If the same person visits your homepage three times in one day, that counts as three page views. Page views are the most fundamental web analytics metric and give you a raw measure of how much traffic your site receives.

Because page views count every load — including refreshes and repeat visits — they measure total traffic volume, not audience size. A bakery site with 1,200 page views this week might have 400 people each viewing three pages, or 150 regulars checking the daily specials over and over. That is why page views are most useful alongside unique visitors and sessions, which tell you how many people and visits produced those views.

Watching page views over time is the quickest health check your website has. A steady climb means your marketing and content are working; a sudden spike usually traces back to a specific post, mention, or campaign worth repeating; a slow decline is an early warning that something — search rankings, a broken link, a stale page — deserves a look.

How it works

In Crafty Meerkat, page views are tracked using a lightweight, under-2KB script that fires a single event per page load. The Page Views chart on your Analytics overview shows the trend for any date range you choose, updates in real time, and can be filtered by page, referrer, country, or device. Dated annotations (notes like “Sent newsletter” pinned to the chart) keep the story behind every spike and dip attached to the data.

How to put it to work

1
Check the trend, not the number
Open your Analytics overview and compare this week to last week. One day’s count means little; the direction over weeks tells you whether your site is growing.
2
Find out which pages earn the views
Scan the Top Pages list. If one blog post or product page draws most of your traffic, that is your proven topic — create more like it and link from it to the pages where customers take action.
3
Trace spikes back to their source
When views jump, check Referrers and Campaigns for the same day to see what caused it. Pin an annotation to the chart so the explanation is still there months later.
4
Exclude your own visits
On a small site, your own page loads can noticeably inflate the numbers. Use the one-click “Exclude my current IP” option in Settings so you only count real visitors.

Tips from the den

◆Judge page views against your own history, not someone else’s site. Beating your own last month is the benchmark that matters.
◆A refresh counts as a new page view, so short bursts of identical views from one visitor name are usually just reloads — not a traffic surge.
◆Pair page views with a goal (like reaching your contact page) so you measure visits that matter, not just volume.

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Common questions

What is the difference between page views and unique visitors?

Page views count every page load, including repeats by the same person. Unique visitors count distinct people. One person reading five pages produces five page views but one unique visitor, so page views will always be the higher number.

Do refreshes and my own visits count as page views?

Yes — every page load counts, including refreshes and your own visits. You can exclude your own traffic by IP address in Settings (per site or account-wide) so your work on the site never skews the numbers.

How many page views is “good” for a small business site?

There is no universal benchmark — a local law office might thrive on 800 views a month while an online store needs tens of thousands. The useful comparison is your own trend: aim for steady month-over-month growth and watch which channels drive it.