Independent Analytics collects anonymized, non-PII* metrics to give you detailed insight into your site’s traffic — all processed and stored securely on your own Indie Website, with no external accounts or third-party tracking.
*PII stands for “Personally Identifiable Information.” Non-PII metrics are numbers and stats that tell you what happened on your site (like how many people visited a page or what country they’re from) without revealing who those people are.
Core Metrics & Terms
Metric / Term | Definition / Description |
Views | The total number of page loads (or “hits”) recorded on your site. Multiple views can be triggered by the same visitor. |
Visitors | Unique “users” as detected by pixel-based, cookie-less logic. Not tied to personal identity — it’s a probabilistic count. |
Sessions | A group of page views by a visitor within a continuous time window. If no new page is visited after a set idle time, a new session begins. |
Session Duration | The average time a session lasts (i.e. time between first and last activity in that session). |
Bounce Rate | Percentage of sessions with only one page view (i.e. the user left or closed without navigating further). |
Average Session Duration | Overall average time users spend per session across your site. |
Beyond the core metrics, Independent Analytics tracks various dimensions to help you segment and understand traffic sources:
Referrers — Which external sites, search engines, or social platforms are sending traffic to your pages.
Geographic Data — Countries, regions, and cities of your visitors (via IP-based geolocation).
Device / Browser / OS — The types of devices, browsers, and operating systems used by visitors.
Post Type / Author / Page Context — Because it runs inside your Indie Website, it can tie page views to post types (post, page, custom types) and authors.
Campaign Tracking (UTMs) — Track where your visitors come from by adding short tags (UTMs) to your links, helping you see which ads, posts, or emails drive the most traffic.
Click Tracking: Measure how often visitors click buttons, banners, or links on your site to understand what grabs their attention.
Form Submission Tracking: Record when visitors fill out contact forms or sign up for newsletters to measure engagement and conversion rates.
Real-Time Analytics: See who’s on your site right now and what pages they’re viewing as activity happens.
Configurable Overview Reports: Build custom dashboards showing only the metrics and charts that matter most to your site’s goals.
Independent Analytics vs. Google Analytics (GA4)
The new addition of Independent Analytics to your Indie Site is not a full replacement for Google Analytics, but is meant to be a user-friendly supplement to your existing GA4 connection. The key reason's this will benefit our publishers are relative to GA4:
Very beginner-friendly configuration with the key insights readily available
Backend dashboard in your Indie Site
No cookies or user personal data (PII) needed
Ownership of your data and up to 2 years of retention