What does event count mean in Google Analytics?

In Google Analytics an event is when a user does something.

For example, an event is triggered each time a user:

• views a page
• scrolls down a page
• downloads a file

In Google Analytics, the events from these examples are given the following names:

• page_view
• scroll
• file_download

Event count is the number times one of these events is triggered. For example an event count of 1,478 next to the page_view event means that there have been 1,478 pageviews.

An event count of 746 alongside the scroll event means there have been 746 scrolls down a page. Is that good? I don't know.

The meaning of the count depends on the event it's connected with. 

There are a few cases where an extra event is generated besides a user action. For example when a user makes their first visit to your website, a first-visit event is triggered as well as a page_view event.

As you can see, events are very detailed, and so event counts get very large. This volume of data is useful when you want to look very closely at a particular page, or part of the page. However, when summarised it's overwhelming. 

For example, Google Analytics might present you with a graph like this:

But what does this mean? The best you can say is "stuff is happening" and "more stuff happens during the week than at weekends".

It's hard to go much further than that, because this graph is a combination of such varied things. Publishing some long articles may result in more scroll events. If your cookies are set to expire after 2 months then you'll get more first_visit events that with a longer expiry interval, because Google will lose track of who people are. 

Events are useful. But mostly they're useful when you pull them into explorations, not on the Events Page.

Spike

I had a hit! 

But I didn’t. 

Or, maybe I did. Let me explain...

A blog I own had a spike in traffic. It happened the day I launched a new post.

Here’s how the stats looked in Google Analytics:

• Saturday – 11 active users
• Sunday – 561 active users
• Monday – 12 active users

These numbers are an under-count, as usual. That’s because some users don’t agree to the use of cookies, and so don’t get counted.

Still, jumping from 11 daily active users to 561 daily active users is good, right? I launched a new page, promoted it on X and the traffic rolled in. What’s not to like?

Sadly, some things don’t add up here. 

Firstly, my social media stats were weaker than for previous posts. The post on X had 60 click-throughs by the end of Saturday. The post on Threads, my backup promotion channel, drew a paltry 3 click-throughs. I’m experienced enough to know it’s mostly your promotion than brings you traffic. If my promotion wasn't performing, why was there a spike in traffic?

Sometimes people share your material somewhere hidden from you: a private Facebook group, an email list, a Telegram channel. Perhaps that happened in this case.

But there are other factors that raise suspicions.

If I focus on the day of the spike and look at the engagement stats, I notice that these 600 users racked up 19,000 page views! That’s wild. A quick calculation shows that would be 34 pageviews per active user. It’s just about possible if every visitor read every single page on that blog. But who does that?

Moreover, when I look at the Pages and Screens Report things get wilder still. According to Google Analytics, these 19,000 views occurred on the home page. So now, you’re asking me to believe that each visitor sat there and refreshed the page 34 times. What's more, my promotion on X (and Threads) didn’t link to the home page, it went straight to the new page.

The traffic was spread evenly across numerous countries, which adds credibility to it. Also, the reading times for these ‘users’ were high: 9m 57s was the average engagement time per active user.

But the technology stats are off. I looked at Active Users by Operating System, found under Reports -> User -> Tech -> Overview. And, on the day of the spike I found the following:

• Windows: 560
• Chrome OS: 558
• Linux: 557
• Macintosh: 557
• Android: 1

If we add up these numbers, we get 2,233 users. That’s rather different from the 560 users recorded elsewhere in Google Analytics.

I find the even split deeply suspicious.  For a website aimed at a general audience (as opposed to one aimed at Mac users), I’d expect Windows to be way out in the lead, and Linux behind the others.

I’m calling it. This is a fake event.

I wonder what the point is. Unlike other Google Analytics spam I’ve seen before, there’s no referring website being promoted. Maybe it’s a spam bot that’s malfunctioned, or has been partially blocked by Google.