The video is in the works. Until then, the guide will get you there.
Step-by-step guide
Where to find the Visitor log
In the side menu, click "Visitors".
A submenu opens. Choose "Visitor log" there.
The Visitor log opens.
What this is good for
Most reports in Trustlytics show you the big picture: how many visits, from where, on which day. The visitor log does the opposite. It zooms in all the way on a single visitor and their path through your site.
This is where it gets interesting if you want to understand what visitors really do. Which pages hold their attention, where they lose interest, and at what point they drop off. Sometimes that one path holds the answer the big numbers never give you.
What is in a visit entry?
Each visit appears as its own entry in the list. The key details are on the left:
| Detail | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Date & time | When the visit started. |
| IP (anonymized) | The IP address is deliberately masked. It cannot be traced back to a person. |
| City & country | The approximate location of the visitor. |
| Referrer | Where the visitor came from (more on that in a moment). |
| Provider | The visitor's internet provider (e.g., Verizon), if known. |
On the right, small icons show the browser, operating system, and device. Hover over them with your mouse to see the details.
What you can do with the provider: if a data center or hosting provider shows up instead of Verizon or Comcast, it is often not a private visitor but a tool or a company network. And if several visits come from the same provider, a team there may be looking at your offer right now.
Where did the visitor come from? (Referrer)
The referrer tells you which channel brought you this visitor:
- Direct access: address typed in directly or saved as a bookmark.
- Search: found through a search engine such as Google.
- Social media: arrived from a social network.
- Referring website: arrived through a link on another site.
- Campaign: arrived through a link you tagged yourself.
The activity timeline
The heart of every entry. Reading from top to bottom, you follow the complete path through the visit: which page, which action, how long, in what order. Like a road the visitor walked, with every stop in sequence.
The icons on the left edge
Every row starts with an icon. That is how you see right away what the visitor did:
| Icon | What happened |
|---|---|
| A page view. The visitor looked at a page on your website. The title and address appear next to it (e.g., "/about.html"). | |
| A click on an external link that leads away from your site (in the image, for example, to YouTube). | |
| A download, such as a PDF or another file. | |
| A tagged content block came into view (at least half visible, for about one second). This shows you whether important content was seen at all. | |
| The visitor interacted with tagged content, meaning they clicked it. | |
| A heartbeat. This means the visitor is still there and active on the page. These signals arrive continuously so that we can measure time on site accurately. By default, we hide them (more on that in a moment). |
The tagged content
Two of the icons in the list deserve special attention, because they can do something no other report can. They separate "seen" from "clicked".
The eye means: the visitor actually had this content in front of them. At least half visible, for about one second. The second marker means: they clicked it.
And right in the gap between these two points lies the most interesting information:
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Never seen | The content is too far down. Visitors do not scroll that far. Move it up. |
| Seen, never clicked | The placement is right, but the message is not. The text, color, or promise is not convincing. |
| Seen and clicked | It is working. Do more of it. |
An everyday example: your contact button was seen twenty times across twenty visits and never clicked. Without this distinction, you would move the button and wonder why nothing changes. With it, you know the position was never the problem.
Showing and hiding heartbeats
To keep the timeline easy to scan, we do not show the many heartbeats from the start. You only see the important steps: pages, clicks, downloads. If you want to know every detail, click the "+" and all the heartbeats expand, so you see every single pulse. In everyday use you rarely need this, but if you want to retrace a visit second by second, it is all there.
The time between steps
Between some entries, you will see a small "+ 15s" or "+ 56s". That is the time that passed between two actions. So you see not only where someone went, but also how much time they took along the way.
These gaps tell you more than they appear to. A long pause before a click usually means: read it and thought it over. Three page changes two seconds apart mean: searched and did not find it.
The colored badges
On the right, a colored badge shows you how long someone stayed on a page:
| Badge | What it means |
|---|---|
| 🟢 Green | Took their time. 30 seconds or more. |
| 🟠 Orange | Took a quick look. |
| ⚪ Gray | Moved on almost immediately. |
That way you can tell without a long search which pages hold visitors' attention and where interest drops. Lots of green on a page? It hits the mark. Lots of gray? Something is going wrong there.
Filtering and sorting
Looking for something specific? Use "Add filter" (button at the top) to narrow down the list, for example by:
- Referrer (where the visitor came from)
- Country, city, language
- Browser, provider
On the right, four icon buttons let you sort the list:
| Icon | Sort by | Shows first … |
|---|---|---|
| Time | the newest visits (default). | |
| Engagement | the longest, most intense visits. | |
| Device | grouped by device type. | |
| Country | grouped by country of origin. |
And the combination that does the most for you: filter by "Campaign" and then sort by engagement. That way you see not just how many visitors a campaign brought, but whether they were the right ones. Ten visits with long paths are worth more than a hundred that leave right away.
The visitor profile
When you click "View visitor profile" on a visit, a window opens with the complete profile of that visitor. All of their visits in one place.
And this is where it gets really interesting. Did someone visit your website three times before sending an inquiry? Here you see the whole path, from the very first session to the last.
For context, because it is easy to misread: "All visits" means all visits from the same day. Not all visits from the past few weeks. What you read here is the story of one day, and that is often revealing enough.
The window is split into two areas: a summary of the visitor on the left, the individual visits in detail on the right.
Left: the summary
- Location: which city and country the visitor came from. If there were several locations (say, once from the office, once on the go), all of them are listed.
- Summary: how much time the visitor spent on your website in total across all visits, how many pages they viewed in total, and how many goals they reached (e.g., submitted a contact form).
- Tech profile: which browser, operating system, and device the visitor used, plus screen resolution and language. That way you can tell, for example, whether someone is browsing on a phone or on a desktop.
Right: the individual visits
Each visit by this visitor appears as its own block, with the newest at the top. For each visit, you see:
- Date & time: when the visit took place.
- Engagement: a colored label showing how intense the visit was (bounce, short, or engaged).
- Number of actions & duration: how many pages and actions, and how long this one visit lasted.
- Where the visitor came from: direct, through a search, social media, another website, or a campaign. If they came through a tagged campaign, you also see the campaign name, source, and medium.
- Activity timeline: the exact path through this visit. Which page in which order, for how long, each, including downloads, clicks on external links, and interactions with content.
Aha moments you will recognize
A few situations where the visitor log suddenly becomes really useful:
- The visitor who took a long time to decide. In the profile, you see that someone looked at your home page first on the same day, then went back to the pricing page twice, and only after a good fifteen minutes submitted the contact form. So they thought it over carefully before reaching out. Good to know for your follow-up.
- Everyone drops off on the same page. You click through a few entries and notice that almost all visits end on one and the same page, usually with a gray badge. A clear sign that something is wrong with that page.
- The one page that holds everyone's attention. A green badge on the same article again and again? That page is working for you. It may be worth linking to your offer more prominently from there.
- Seen, but never clicked. Your most important button regularly shows up in the timeline as "seen" but almost never as "clicked". Then it is visible and still has no effect. The position is not the problem, the message is.
- A view that grounds you. Sometimes the real path of a single visitor says more than any percentage. You see how someone actually navigates your site, and you understand right away where it gets stuck.
What is in it for me?
The visitor log is your detail magnifier:
- Understand behavior: see which path a visitor took, step by step.
- Measure interest: green badges show which pages are really being read.
- Check impact: see whether your most important content is seen and also clicked. No other report can do that.
- Spot returning visitors: use the profile to trace the path to the inquiry, within the same day.
The real value is that averages lie. Not on purpose, but they smooth out the peaks and valleys. A bounce rate of 60% does not tell you why someone left. Three visits in the log that all end at the same spot tell you right away. That is the difference between a number and an explanation.
A tip on dosage: do not read a hundred entries. Take five to ten, ideally sorted by engagement, and look at them closely. For numbers and trends across many visitors, use the Visitors overview. The visitor log is deliberately the view of the single visit.
Common questions
Can I identify an individual visitor personally?
No, and that is on purpose. You see origin, device, and the path through your site, but no names, no email addresses, nothing personal. You understand behavior, you do not track people. That is exactly what we are here for.
How are different visits matched to the same visitor?
This happens through technical characteristics, not personal data. And that is exactly why the matching only applies within the same day, not across days. If someone comes back tomorrow, Trustlytics counts them as a new visitor. That is on purpose: we work without cookies and do not follow anyone over a longer period. Because the matching relies on technical characteristics, it is a good estimate, not a hundred percent certainty. For everyday use, that is more than enough to spot patterns.
What exactly do the colored badges mean?
They show how long someone stayed on a page. Green means 30 seconds or more, orange means a quick look, gray means moved on almost immediately. That way you can see at a glance which pages hold attention.
What is the difference between "seen" and "clicked"?
The eye in the timeline means: the content was visible to the visitor. The second marker means: they clicked it. This distinction shows you whether an element is too far down or simply not convincing. Both icons only appear for content you have tagged yourself beforehand.
Are bots shown in the log?
Automated visits such as search engine crawlers are detected and clearly marked as "Bot" in the profile. That way you do not mistake a crawler for a real prospect.
Why do I see no referrer for some visits?
Because it is not always possible to tell where someone came from. People who type the address directly or use a bookmark leave no trace of where they came from. Such visits are listed under "Direct".
How far back can I view visits?
As far back as your date selection at the top of the header allows. Set the period, and the log shows exactly the visits from it.
Is the visitor log the same as the Real-time report?
No, even though both relate to individual visits. The Real-time report shows the current moment and the last few hours. The visitor log works with the period you set at the top and offers filters, sorting, and the full visitor profile. For a view of right now, use Real-time. For analysis, use the log.