Segment Analysis FAQs

Q: Can I analyze subdomains, such as shop.lululemon.com?

A: Yes! This provides an opportunity for you to receive more granular data with segments along with more specific results.

Q: If a site I’m analyzing drops below the 15K threshold in a given month, is there any way for me to retrieve the historical data for the segment when it was above the threshold? 

A: Yes - you can access this historical data through the API. For more information, visit the Developer Hub. 

Q: Why do I see a hollow dot / dotted line or exclamation point for some months in Segment Analysis?

A: Segment Analysis data is based on estimations of both website visits and visits to specific pages. When we have a high confidence level in estimations, you’ll see a full dot. If the confidence level is low, you will see a dotted line with an estimation on the graph. If we don't have enough data to generate estimations for a given month, we show an exclamation point (!). If we do not have sufficient data to provide a reliable estimation for any months in the analyzed time period, you will see “Not enough data.”

Q: Is Segment Analysis available for Desktop and Mobile Web?

A: Desktop Segment Analysis data is available across all geographic locations.

Mobile Web Segment data is available in open BETA when analyzing the US country filter.

Q:  Is the worldwide country filter available in Segment Analysis?

A: Yes!

Q: What is included in the worldwide country filter?

A: Worldwide data includes both data from the country filters that we manage and display on the platform, as well as data from a variety of other countries.

The data collected from countries that do not have an independent country filter is not at the scale where we are able to display them independently, however, because of Similarweb's global methodology, we still have coverage and data in those geos. This data is available when analyzing data with the worldwide country filter.

Q: How does the segment wizard suggest folders?

A: In the section of Segment Analysis where you can build a segment based on folders, folders are automatically suggested for a user to select to create a segment. The segment wizard reviews top pages for the domain across the top 10 countries - this can be over 150,000 urls for big sites. Based on this review, the wizard derives suggested folders for the domain.

Q: I entered a long list of URLs to add to a segment and received the following error message “Oops! You hit the limit.” What is the size limit for a segment?

A: A segment cannot be larger than 16,000 characters (not URLs or strings, but individual characters). This means that If a segment exceeds this limit, then you will receive the “Oops! You hit the limit” error message with a note on how far over the limit you are. 

Q: When I build a segment for domain.com, will visits to sub.domain.com be included? 

A: Yes, when you build a segment for a main domain (e.g. lululemon.com), any relevant pages within subdomains (e.g. shop.lululemon.com) will be included. 

If you want to analyze just visits to pages within a subdomain, then the subdomain should be the starting point for your segment in the Segment Builder.

Q: How do I exclude subdomains from my segment? 

A: If you'd like to exclude pages within a subdomain from a segment when analyzing a main domain (e.g. to analyze lululemon.com, excluding all pages within shop.lululemon.com), you can apply an exclude filter under "Exclude URLs based on," select "folders", and enter the subdomain you'd like to exclude. 

Q: If a user visits multiple pages in a segment during one session, will this count as multiple visits?

A: If the visitor visits at least one page in the segment, they are counted as one visitor to the segment. If the same user visits multiple pages within the segment, they will still count as one overall visit to the segment. Visits to a segment are not double-counted.

Q: How is average visit duration defined and measured in Segment Analysis?

A: Average visit duration in Segment Analysis is measured in the same way that it is in other parts of the Similarweb platform, but counts only activity that occurs within pages in the segment. This means that a visit in Segment Analysis expires after 30 minutes of inactivity from the last action on a page within a segment.

Q: Why doesn’t the sum of daily visits to a segment add up to the total monthly visits?

A: This is most likely expected behavior. For any granularity (day/week/month), if there is not enough data or the confidence is not high enough, then we won’t show the data for that day/week/month. 

That is why on the most atomic granularity, daily, some daily visits confidence is too low to be shown, but at the monthly level, the segment has enough visits to generate and show estimations for the metrics.

If there are daily estimations for every day of the month and then they do not equal the sum of the monthly visits, please reach out to our Support team.

Q: What traffic sources are included in the Direct traffic channel in Segment Analysis? 

A: Direct traffic includes traffic from users directly entering the URL, using a bookmark, or clicking a saved link, consistent with direct traffic methodology across the Similarweb platform. 

Q: Why does the data I see in Segment Analysis not align with the data I see in Popular Pages for the same URLs? 

A: Popular Pages and Segment Analysis are different features with different methodologies, and we do not expect estimations to align exactly. There are a few reasons why the data you see for a page/folder in Segment Analysis will different from the data you see for the same page/folder in Popular Pages.  

1. Popular Pages is a ‘PII safe’ feature - meaning we filter out all pages for each domain that might contain PII to avoid sharing any sensitive information. Therefore, the calculated share you see in Popular Pages is based on the filtered pages only, and not all pages of the website. The Segment Analysis feature hides all URLs that contain sensitive information within the Segment Builder, but those pages are still included in the segment behind the scenes.
   In short, Popular Pages shows the share out of fewer total URLs vs segments showing a share of a greater number.
2. Any segment in Segment Analysis that is not made with the "exact URL" filter will contain other pages within the same folder, or other pages that have a matching text variation for the Segment rule. Therefore, there are more pages included in the Segment, beyond just the exact URLs listed in PP, that are influencing the % share you see in Segment Analysis.

Q: How do I share segments within my account?

A: All new segments you create will automatically be saved within Shared Segments. Users within your account can copy and edit saved segments -- increasing collaboration across teams and saving you valuable time.

When you Compare Segments, you can either choose My Segments or select from the list of Shared Segments.