Metrics and Numbers

Why are the live and engagement metrics on Visibl different from Google Analytics?

Visibl and Google Analytics use different methods to calculate live users and engagement, which can result in discrepancies.

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) defines "Users in the last 30 minutes" as the number of unique users who triggered at least one pageview in the past 30 minutes. This is a cumulative metric and does not reflect real-time user activity minute by minute.

• The "Users per minute" metric in GA4 counts unique users per 60-second interval but cannot be summed to match the 30-minute count, since a user may appear across multiple minutes but is only counted once in the total.

• Universal Analytics (GA Real-Time) considers users active if they have triggered an event or pageview in the past 5 minutes.

Visibl defines live users based on interaction within the last 90 seconds. This includes any meaningful action such as scrolling, clicking, mouse movement, or typing. As a result, Visibl provides a more immediate and precise view of users actively engaging with a page.

Why is the recirculation rate sometimes over 100%?

This only happens in real-time data, and it’s expected.

Recirculation Rate = (Number of live users who clicked a link to navigate to another internal page) ÷ (Number of live users currently on the article) × 100

Recirculation shows how many users click on a link and move to another page on your site. The number can go above 100% in real-time because users who’ve moved on to another page might outnumber the users still on the original article.

Here’s a quick example:

• Let’s say 100 users land on an article.

• After a while, 70 users click to another page, and only 30 users are still reading.

• Recirculation = 70 / 30 = 233%

So even though it sounds strange, it's completely normal. Over time, as traffic settles down, the rate will stay under 100% in your historical reports.

Why is recirculation rate 0% when filtering by Search, Discover, Social, Referral, or Direct?

When users arrive at your site through external sources like Search, Social, or Email, their initial pageview is attributed to that source. However, once they navigate to another internal page, their source is reclassified as Internal.

Therefore, if you're filtering by an external source (e.g., "Search"), you're only seeing activity on the user's landing page. Any subsequent internal navigation is excluded from that filter view, resulting in a recirculation rate of 0%.

To analyze internal movement, you can either remove the source filter or filter by "Internal" traffic.

Why is Time Spent different from what I see in other analytics tools?

Every analytics tool calculates time spent a little differently.

Some tools only track time when users are actively doing something — like clicking or scrolling. If a user is just reading (without touching the screen), that time might not be counted.

Visibl is built for content teams, so we measure Time Spent as long as the user:

• Has the page open, and

• Has done something in the last 60 seconds.

If they stop interacting for over a minute, we pause the timer. If they start scrolling again, we start counting again. This helps you get a more realistic view of how long people are actually spending on your articles — even if they’re just quietly reading.

How does Visibl track unique users, and how accurate is it?

Visibl uses browser cookies to identify unique users. When a visitor lands on your website, a cookie is set in their browser to recognize them on future visits.

• If the user returns using the same browser and device, they will be counted as a returning user.

• If they visit from a different browser or device, they will be treated as a new user, since a different cookie ID is generated.

This is the standard way most analytics tools work. It’s accurate enough for understanding trends, but keep in mind that the same person on two different devices will still count as two users — which is true across all tools.