Page impressions

Page impressions (PI), also known as page views, are a web analytics metric. They count the views of individual pages of a website. Every page loaded is a page impression – even if the same visitor views it several times.

Page views, visits and visitors

Page impressions should be distinguished from visits (sessions) and visitors (users). A visit begins when someone calls up the website and ends after a certain period of inactivity. If the visitor clicks through several categories and products during a visit, several page impressions are generated but only one visit. The number of visitors, on the other hand, counts the people or devices, regardless of how often they return. In Google Analytics 4, the corresponding metrics are called “views”, “sessions” and “users”.

In online advertising, page impressions are a classic metric, because the cost-per-mille (CPM) billing model is based on them: an advertiser pays a fixed price for a thousand impressions of their ad. Strictly speaking, it's not the page that's counted but the display of the ad (ad impression). CPM only says something about reach, not effect: it neither measures whether anyone bought nor shows whether a thousand different people were reached or 500 people twice. That's why additional metrics such as clicks, conversions and ad viewability are mostly used today.

Page impressions in website and shop analysis

Even though page impressions have lost importance as the sole metric for advertising, they remain useful for analysing a website.

Page impressions show which pages are viewed particularly often and which receive little attention. In combination with other metrics – such as pages per session, engagement rate, bounce rate or conversions – they show how well visitors are guided through a website or shop. Many page views per visit can indicate great interest, but also that visitors can't quickly find what they are looking for. An unusually sharp increase in page impressions can also indicate bot traffic. Page impressions should not be confused with impressions in Google Search Console: there, an impression counts how often a page was shown in the search results – together with clicks, this gives the click-through rate.