What is Pageview?
A pageview is a single load of a single page by a browser. It is the most granular common unit in web analytics and the least meaningful on its own — one engaged reader and one bot loop can produce the same count. Everything else, from visits to bounce rate, is built by grouping pageviews.
What triggers one
Classically, a full document load. In practice that definition stopped matching how the web works some time ago:
- Single-page applications change the URL without loading a document. If the tracker does not listen for history changes, an entire session registers as one pageview.
- Back and forward navigation may serve from the browser cache without firing a load event.
- Prefetching can request a page the visitor never actually sees. A tool that counts those inflates everything downstream.
Each of these is a decision the tool makes, and different tools decide differently — which is most of the reason two analytics scripts on the same site never agree.
Why it is a poor headline metric
A pageview says a page was requested. It does not say anyone read it, understood it or came back. Ten pageviews from one confused person navigating in circles looks identical to ten satisfied readers.
Use it for what it is good at — comparing the relative popularity of pages on the same site, over the same period, measured the same way — and use visitors and visits for anything about audience size.
Pageviews and pricing
Many analytics tools bill by monthly pageviews. Some, including sonex, bill by events, where a pageview is one kind of event and a custom event is another. Neither is universally cheaper: an event-based plan costs more on a site that fires many custom events, and less on one that does not. Compare with your own mix, not with the headline allowance.