what do these terms mean Bounce rate, % Exit and $ Index? wats d difference b/w new vs returning visitors?
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. (http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=81986) _____________________________________________________________________ "exit" means 30 minutes passed without any GA-recorded events for that Google analytics cookie (i.e. your GA account). The last GA-recorded event is the "exit" page. There are lots of possible reasons for no activity for 30 minutes. A GA-recorded event would include clicks that go offsite only **IF** you have coded those links so that GA would record them. Not many people do set up links that way as it requires extra work and possibly moving the tag's location on the page. If visitors close the tab or browser yet come back within 30 minutes (with the same browser, because the cookie is unique to the browser) then that is additional activity within the 30 minute limit, so that's not an exit. _____________________________________________________________________ $ Index is the average value for a page that a user visited before landing on the goal page or completing an Ecommerce transaction (or both). This value is intended to give you an idea of which page in your site contributed more to your site's revenue. If you set goals, this variable is important -- Read more on http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=86205