How do I check how many visitors my website gets?

Open Reports and press Traffic. You get visits, how many separate people that was, which pages they read and where they arrived from, over whichever window you pick. It only reads the figures, so there is nothing to approve and your site cannot change.

Why does one of my sites say it is not measuring yet?

Visitor counting comes from a tag on your pages, and only runs on sites where you have switched measuring on. A site that has not been switched on is named in the report as not counting visitors, rather than counted as zero, so it can never make a total look like a drop. It still gets its search figures, because those need no tag.

Can I see what people searched to find me?

Yes. The bottom of the Traffic report shows what people typed into Google, how often it showed your site and how many clicked, next to the window before. It works even on a site that is not counting visitors, it reads only and there is nothing to approve.

What does the AI assistants figure mean?

It counts visits that came from an AI assistant answering someone's question and sending them on to you. It is a small number for most sites today and a growing one, which is why it gets its own tile.

How many people visited my site?

Visitor numbers are worth having for one reason: they tell you whether the quiet month is a demand problem or a being-found problem. Reports puts them next to your sales so you can tell the two apart in a glance.

What Traffic shows you

Reports in the menu, then the Traffic chip:

visits and how many separate people that was
how many arrived from an AI assistant answering a question
how many enquiries came in over the same window
one line per site with its own trend, and an account total
your most-read pages and where visitors came from
what people searched on Google to find you, at the bottom of the card

What people searched to find you

Under the visit figures sits a second set of numbers: the phrases people typed into Google, how many times it showed your site in the results, how many of those turned into a click, and roughly where you sat on the page. Each one is compared with the window before it.

These are a different measurement from visits, so they are kept apart and never added together. Google showing you a hundred times is not a hundred visits, and a click from a results page is counted by Google rather than by us. Reading them side by side is the useful bit: lots of showings and few clicks usually means the page turns up for the right search but the title does not tempt anybody.

The list starts as your busiest handful of searches and gets deeper the longer your site has been with us, until it runs to every phrase you have appeared for, including the one-off oddities. The card tells you which of the two you are looking at, so you never mistake the top of the list for all of it. Use the words people actually search for covers what to do with them once you have them.

Sites that are not counting visitors

Visit numbers come from a small tag on your pages, and it only runs on the sites where you have turned measuring on. Any site you have not switched on is listed by name as not counting visitors rather than sitting in the total as a zero. That matters: a silent zero would make a perfectly healthy account look like it was falling apart.

The search half is different. It needs no tag and no tracking of any kind, so a site that is not counting visitors still shows what people searched and how often Google put it in front of them. Switching measuring on adds the visits; it is not the thing standing between you and the search figures.

Google also only answers in fixed stretches - roughly a week, a month, three months. So if you pick a one-day window, the visitor figures come with a note saying which stretch they really cover. Take the note at face value; it is there because the alternative is a number under the wrong label.

Reading it honestly

A drop in visits with steady sales usually means fewer casual browsers, not fewer customers. A drop in both is worth looking at properly, and See how sales are going is the other half of that story. If the whole picture is thin, the usual cause is that search engines have not caught up with the site yet - Get my site into Google covers that, and How do I help ChatGPT and other AI assistants understand my site? covers the assistants.

The prompt

“How many people visited my site over the last month, where did they come from, and which pages did they read?”

Press Copy, then paste it into your AI and fill in the [bracketed] parts. First time? Connect your AI to bernard first - a one-time setup in bernard → your site → Use your own AI.

Questions people ask

How do I check how many visitors my website gets?: Open Reports and press Traffic. You get visits, how many separate people that was, which pages they read and where they arrived from, over whichever window you pick. It only reads the figures, so there is nothing to approve and your site cannot change.
Why does one of my sites say it is not measuring yet?: Visitor counting comes from a tag on your pages, and only runs on sites where you have switched measuring on. A site that has not been switched on is named in the report as not counting visitors, rather than counted as zero, so it can never make a total look like a drop. It still gets its search figures, because those need no tag.
Can I see what people searched to find me?: Yes. The bottom of the Traffic report shows what people typed into Google, how often it showed your site and how many clicked, next to the window before. It works even on a site that is not counting visitors, it reads only and there is nothing to approve.
What does the AI assistants figure mean?: It counts visits that came from an AI assistant answering someone's question and sending them on to you. It is a small number for most sites today and a growing one, which is why it gets its own tile.