What is a session in GA4?
A session is one visit to your site. When GA4 starts and ends a session, how it differs from Universal Analytics, and how sessions relate to users.
A session in Google Analytics 4 is one visit: a period when someone is using your site. It starts when they arrive and ends after 30 minutes without activity (by default). One person can have many sessions, so you'll always have more sessions than users.
When a session starts and ends
- Starts: when someone opens your site and GA4 records
session_start. - Ends: after 30 minutes of no activity. You can change this timeout in the data stream's tag settings (Adjust session timeout).
Unlike the old Universal Analytics, GA4 doesn't start a new session at midnight or when the traffic source changes mid-visit.
Sessions vs users
| Counts | |
|---|---|
| Users | People (really, browsers) |
| Sessions | Visits |
If 100 users visit twice each, that's 100 users and 200 sessions.
Session source
Each session has one source and medium: where that visit came from. Traffic acquisition reports use session-level sources. Source and medium.
In SimpleDash
SimpleDash leads with Visitors (active users) rather than sessions, because "how many people came" is the clearer question. Sources are by session, like GA4's Traffic acquisition report.
Related
Sources
- Google: About Analytics sessions
Last updated
Active users
Active users is GA4's main visitor count. What counts as an active user, how it differs from total and new users, and where to find it in GA4.
Engaged sessions
GA4 counts a visit as engaged if it lasts over 10 seconds, has a key event or views 2+ pages. Engagement rate and bounce rate follow from that.