Total Visitors Vs New vs. Returning Visitors

“Total Visitors” counts each visitor during your selected date range only once. So, if visitor A comes to your site 5 times during the selected date range and visitor B comes to your site just once, you will have 2 Visitors. Remember, a visitor is uniquely identified by a Google Analytics visitor cookie.

The “New vs. Returning” report classifies each visit as coming from either a new visitor or a returning visitor. So when someone visits your site for the first time, the visit is categorized as “Visit from a new visitor.” If the person has browsed your website before, the visit is categorized as “Visit from a returning visitor.”

A high number of new visits suggests that you are successful at driving traffic to your site while a high number of return visits suggests that the site content is engaging enough for visitors to come back.

You can look at the Frequency and Recency report to see how recently visitors have visited. And you can look at the same report to see how frequently they return. The report is under Behavior in the Visitors section.