# Overview

> High-level snapshot of website traffic and engagement — visitors, sessions, page views, bounce rate, and top traffic sources.

Source: https://docs.graph8.com/analytics/overview/

The Analytics Overview gives you a high-level snapshot of your website's performance. See total visitors, sessions, page views, and engagement metrics at a glance — with trend indicators showing how things are changing over time.

## Dashboard Metrics

The overview displays key metrics with period-over-period trend comparisons:

| Metric | What It Measures |
|--------|-----------------|
| **Unique Visitors** | Total distinct users visiting your site |
| **New Visitors** | First-time visitors in the selected period |
| **Sessions** | Total browsing sessions |
| **Page Views** | Total pages viewed across all sessions |
| **Bounce Rate** | Percentage of single-page sessions (lower is better) |
| **Avg Session Duration** | Average time visitors spend on your site |

Each metric includes a trend indicator showing whether it's trending up, down, or neutral compared to the previous period.

## Top Traffic Sources

A bar chart shows your top traffic channels ranked by session volume:

| Channel | Source |
|---------|--------|
| **Direct** | Visitors who typed your URL or used bookmarks |
| **Organic Search** | Visitors from search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) |
| **Paid Search** | Visitors from paid search ads |
| **Social** | Visitors from social media platforms |
| **Email** | Visitors from email campaigns |
| **Referral** | Visitors from other websites linking to you |
| **AI/LLM** | Visitors from AI assistants and language models |

Each channel shows its session count and percentage of total traffic.

## Audience Trend

An interactive line chart tracks four metrics over time:

- Users
- New users
- Sessions
- Page views

Use this to spot traffic patterns, identify spikes from campaigns, or detect drops that need attention.

## Controls

| Control | What It Does |
|---------|-------------|
| **Date range** | Select the time period to analyze (1–365 days) |
| **Stream selector** | Filter to a specific data stream (if you have multiple websites) |
| **Browser key** | Filter by specific tracking key |

## How Trends Are Calculated

Trends compare the second half of your selected period to the first half. For example, if you select a 30-day range, the trend compares days 16–30 against days 1–15. This gives you a built-in comparison without needing to manually set date ranges.

> **Tip:**
> Check the Overview daily to stay on top of traffic trends. A sudden drop in new visitors or a spike in bounce rate usually signals something worth investigating in the Acquisition or Behavior dashboards.

## Next Steps

- [Marketing Intelligence →](https://docs.graph8.com/analytics/marketing-intelligence/) — Measure web-to-outbound conversion
- [Realtime →](https://docs.graph8.com/analytics/realtime/) — Monitor live website activity
- [Acquisition →](https://docs.graph8.com/analytics/acquisition/) — Understand where visitors come from