Trends & Anomalies
The Web Analytics Trends & Anomalies page shows the days your traffic jumped or dropped, lasting level shifts, and pages that lose or gain readers.
The Web Analytics Trends & Anomalies page shows what changed in your traffic, when it changed, and what to check. It has two tabs: Traffic changes and Pages.
Before you start
- Install the Web Analytics script. See Analytics script. Without the script, the page shows Install Web Analytics to see what changed in your traffic.
- Verify the domain. See Verify ownership.
- In the sidebar, select Web Analytics > Trends & Anomalies.
- The page has fixed windows. Traffic changes always covers the last 90 days. Pages compares weeks over the last 180 days. The filter dock has filters only, no date range.
Days that are still counting are left out. The page needs a few weeks of visits. Until then, it shows Not enough traffic data yet and Trends appear once the site has a few weeks of visits to compare.
VitalSentinel calculates these reports in advance, so the page has no refresh button. If you add filters, the reports calculate when you open the page.
Traffic verdict
The Web Analytics Trends & Anomalies page starts with one sentence about your traffic:
| Sentence | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Your normal traffic level moved 2 times in the last 90 days (example) | Traffic moved to a new normal and stayed there |
| Your normal traffic level has held | No lasting move of 15% or more |
| Your traffic has been steady | No standout days and no level shifts |
| Not enough days of traffic yet | VitalSentinel needs about two weeks of traffic |
A figure next to the sentence shows the biggest move, such as Biggest move on (or Level move on) and a date, or Last 28 days vs the 28 before. The ? at What counts as a move gives the rule: a size of 15% or more, held for 7 days or more.
If Web Analytics found problems, a banner such as Trends & Anomalies: 2 open issues shows. It links to Site Health.
Tiles
The Web Analytics Trends & Anomalies page shows two tiles:
- Traffic changes: level shifts and standout days in the last 90 days. If there are too few days, it shows Not enough days to judge yet.
- Pages losing readers: pages whose weekly views fell over the last 180 days. The note shows how many pages are gaining readers.
Traffic changes tab
The Web Analytics card What changed shows daily sessions for the last 90 days, with the changes marked. A session is one visit. The Normal level line steps up or down at each level shift.
What the marks mean
| Mark | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Level shift | Traffic moved to a new normal, such as Level shift 1: down 20% |
| Spike or Dip | A standout day, far from the usual for that weekday, such as +340 sessions off normal |
| Notes | Other things that happened that day |
| Today so far | Today is still counting, so its number is low and not used in the summary |
Hover a mark to see the day. A level shift says From about one number to about another number of sessions a day.
Changes, newest first
The list Changes, newest first shows each change with what else happened that day. Examples are an outage, a site change, Google update rolling out: and a name, or Tracking note: and a title. A Lasting chip marks a level shift that held.
The same change on many pages is one line. Hover it to see the pages. Notes may be related to a change, or not. Start with the newest change.
If there is too little data, the card shows Not enough daily traffic data yet. With filters, it can show No visits match these filters.
7 day trend
Lower on the Traffic changes tab, the tile Trend 7 days compares the average daily sessions of the last 7 days with the 7 days before. It includes today, which is still counting. The note shows both figures, such as Recent 120 vs prior 104.
Pages tab
The Web Analytics card Pages that lost or gained readers compares each page week by week over the last 180 days. It has two tabs: Lost readers and Gained readers.
On Lost readers, a chip shows how the page lost readers:
- Dropped off: the page went from real traffic to almost none.
- Fading: the page loses readers more slowly.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Page | The page address |
| Earlier weekly avg. | Average page views per week earlier in the period |
| Recent weekly avg. | Average page views per week in the most recent weeks |
| Last 12 weeks | Page views per week for the last 12 weeks, oldest on the left |
| Views lost a week | How many fewer page views the page gets each week now (on Lost readers) |
| Change | How much higher the recent weekly average is, in percent (on Gained readers) |
Gained readers lists only pages with at least 200 views in total. The ? at How sure the trend is shows the Chance it is noise.
Refresh or redirect the fading pages. If there is not enough data, the card shows Not enough weekly data per page yet.
Pages by weekly movement
Lower on the Pages tab, the tiles Pages by weekly movement show four counts. The first tile counts the pages with enough weekly views to judge a trend. The other tiles are Decaying, Rising and Flat.
Troubleshooting
Why does Trends & Anomalies say "Not enough days of traffic yet"?
VitalSentinel needs about two weeks of daily traffic to find unusual days and level shifts. Wait until your site has more days of visits.
Why can I not change the dates on this page?
The page always uses the last 90 days for traffic changes and the last 180 days for pages. The filter dock on this page has filters only.
What is the difference between a level shift and a spike?
A level shift is a lasting move: traffic changed by 15% or more and stayed there for 7 days or more. A spike or a dip is one day far from the usual for that weekday.
Why is today not in the summary?
Today is still counting, so its number is low. The chart marks it as Today so far, and the summary leaves it out.
Related
- Overview - traffic for any date range
- Realtime - check that tracking works now
- Google Search Console trends - changes in Google clicks
- Page Monitoring - changes on your pages
- Site Health - traffic drop and page issues
Performance & Reliability
The Web Analytics Performance & Reliability page shows if slow pages, outages or broken landing pages cost you visitors, and which pages to fix first.
Overview
Server Log Monitoring shows which search engine and AI crawlers fetch your pages, how your server answers them, and which bots are fake.
