---
title: "How Sealmetrics Calculates Entrances"
description: "Learn what an Entrance is in Sealmetrics, how it differs from GA4 Visits, and how it compares to Pageviews in a privacy-first analytics system."
canonical_url: "https://docs.sealmetrics.com/reports/insights/how-sealmetrics-calculates-entrances"
lang: "en"
date_generated: "2026-10-08T17:47:47.862Z"
source_hash: "0baba4330d6e6497940775f9dea659029e7c44d8b110735c70111420a7b0d5ba"
content_type: "documentation"
owner: "docs"
llm_priority: "useful"
source_file: "reports/insights/how-sealmetrics-calculates-entrances.mdx"
publisher: "Sealmetrics"
---

# How Sealmetrics Calculates Entrances

Canonical page: https://docs.sealmetrics.com/reports/insights/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](/security-privacy/what-we-track).

---

## Entrances vs. Visits (GA4)

| Metric | How It Works | Requires Consent? | Why |
|--------|--------------|-------------------|-----|
| **Visits (GA4)** | Groups interactions into a session using a persistent client ID | Yes | GA4 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 window | No | Sessions 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

| Scenario | Classification |
|---------|----------------|
| User lands from Google | **Entrance** |
| User clicks to another page internally | **Pageview** |
| User completes a conversion event | **Conversion / 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.

## Related documentation

- [Metrics Reference](/reports/definitions) — Formulas for entrances, pageviews, and conversions
- [GA4 vs Sealmetrics — Complete Comparison](/faq/ga4-vs-sealmetrics) — How entrances differ from GA4 sessions
- [What is Consentless Analytics?](/security-privacy/consentless-analytics) — Why measurement needs no persistent identifiers
- [Overview Report](/reports/overview) — See entrances and pageviews at a glance