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How Sealmetrics Calculates Entrances

Understanding how Entrances work is essential for interpreting your traffic accurately in a privacy-first environment. Sealmetrics uses a simple, transparent method that complies with GDPR and ePrivacy while still providing actionable insights.

What Is an Entrance?​

An Entrance is the start of a session on your website. A session groups a visitor's interactions together based on referrer context and inactivity — with a 2-hour inactivity timeout, GA4-style — without ever attaching a persistent identifier to the visitor.

Concretely, Sealmetrics counts a new Entrance whenever a hit arrives with an external referrer (or no referrer at all) and the session doesn't already exist. Continuous browsing on the same site produces Pageviews within the same Entrance's session, not new Entrances.

Example​

If the same visitor lands on your site at 9:00, keeps browsing until 9:30, and comes back at 3:00 PM the same day:

2 Entrances, one for each session (the 3:00 PM return is a new session because the 2-hour inactivity window elapsed).

If instead they lands, closes the tab and reopens the same landing page 30 seconds later within the same session context:

1 Entrance — the second hit is a pageview inside the same session.

Sealmetrics tracks sessions without tracking the individual. Session boundaries are derived from referrer + inactivity. Hits are grouped by a session identifier that the tracker computes in the browser from standard device characteristics; it is never written to the device (no cookie) and is re-keyed on the server with a daily salt that is destroyed on rotation, so nothing stored can link a device across days. See What We Track.

Entrances vs. Visits (GA4)​

MetricHow It WorksRequires Consent?Why
Visits (GA4)Groups interactions into a session using a persistent client IDYesGA4 identifies the returning visitor across sessions to unify their history
Entrances (Sealmetrics)Starts a session on the first arrival; groups follow-up hits within the session's ~2-hour inactivity windowNoSessions are grouped by a device-characteristics hash re-keyed daily on the server, not by a persistent per-user identifier

Key Difference​

GA4's "Visit" attaches to a persistent identity that follows the user across days and devices. Sealmetrics' "Entrance" is bounded to a single session, defined only by the visitor's context on that day — no identity is carried forward, no cross-session join exists.

Entrances vs. Pageviews in Sealmetrics​

Sealmetrics records all interactions as hits, then categorizes them based on their context.

Hit Types in Sealmetrics​

1. Microconversions / Conversions​

A hit becomes a conversion when it has a defined name, such as:

  • add-to-cart
  • purchase
  • lead
  • signup

2. Pageviews​

A hit is a pageview when:

  • The hit’s domain matches the referrer domain
    (meaning the user navigated within the same site)

3. Entrances​

A hit is an Entrance when:

  • The referrer does not match the tracked domain
    (meaning the user arrived from outside your site)

Summary Table​

ScenarioClassification
User lands from GoogleEntrance
User clicks to another page internallyPageview
User completes a conversion eventConversion / Microconversion

Why Entrances Matter​

Entrances give you:

  • A privacy-safe measurement of how often people access your website
  • A method that requires no cookies, no persistent identifiers, no consent (self-assessed)
  • A consistent way to track traffic across all browsers and privacy restrictions

Even if the same person enters multiple times from SEO, each access is counted independently.
This is intentional: counting entrances rather than unique people is what lets Sealmetrics report meaningful traffic volume without identifying anyone.

Conclusion​

Sealmetrics simplifies traffic measurement with a privacy-first, event-based approach:

  • Entrances count how many times your website is accessed
  • Pagesviews reflect internal navigation
  • Conversions represent meaningful actions

While Entrances are not equivalent to “sessions” or “unique visitors,” they provide a reliable, compliant way to understand traffic volumes in a cookieless world.

This method ensures:

  • No user tracking
  • No persistent identifiers (only an ephemeral session identifier that rotates daily)
  • No consent required (self-assessed; Germany: open question)
  • Accurate, transparent traffic measurement

Sealmetrics delivers analytics designed for the privacy-first era — without compromising data integrity.

Written and maintained by the Sealmetrics Team