Glossary

 This glossary explains key words and concepts found in Blue Triangle. It's a good place to get started learning how to set up and use your Blue Triangle products.

A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - I - J - K - L - M - N - O - P - Q - R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

 

A

A/B Testing Segment

Segments a certain portion of traffic into an A and B segment for direct comparison.

Accessor 

Retrieves a value from a designated target, usually without changing any data.

Action

Executes a specific function or instruction on the web page that changes the page in some way. This can be as simple as a mouse click.

Agent 

Sends synthetic traffic to a website to measure performance of the site. Agents can simulate specific browser and device types to mimic typical website traffic.

Agent Location 

Specifies the location of the server operating an agent.

Anchored Start Time

When a report refreshes, the beginning of the time period selected remains the same day/time as originally selected.

App Cache

The amount of time it takes for a page to retrieve information from the application cache. Caching allows local storage and retrieval of information for loading a page. In the browser, the App Cache time is defined as the time elapsed between Fetch Start and Domain Lookup Start (App Cache = domainLookupStart - fetchStart). If there is no caching, Fetch Start and Domain Lookup Start occur simultaneously. See W3C Navigation Timing for more information.

App Connect

The average time it takes until the HTTP security protocol connect/handshake to the remote host is completed.

Application Programming Interface (API) 

A set of protocols, subroutines, and definitions for building application software. An example of an API would be the C++ Standard Template Library.

Arithmetic Mean 

Also called the mean or average, this statistical method sums each value in a data set and divides by the quantity of values.

Assertion 

Indicates whether a page is functioning properly by looking for an expected result at a certain point in the loading of a web page. An assertion can be a pre- or post-condition in the code that returns a Boolean value regarding code execution.

Average Order Value 

The average value of a conversion.

Average Revenue

The average revenue per visitor. 

Average Revenue / Converted Session 

The average value of each session in which at least one conversion occurred.

B

Bandwidth 

The net bit rate for accessing a web page. Bandwidth affects page performance by limiting the rate of data transfer in a browser. Decreased bandwidth will result in increased page load times.

Base Page 

The average time the page takes to fetch the HTML file. This is calculated in the browser as the time elapsed between Response Start and Response End (Base Page = responseEnd - responseStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for more information.

Base Page and SSL Monitor 

Drives synthetic traffic to a site to track base page and SSL metrics, such as the time for the base page to load, average DNS, average TCP, and SSL success rate.

Blacklist Filters

Listing any domain in a blacklist filter will exclude those domains from results. Depending on the context of the filter, blacklists can be useful for removing unwanted traffic from results, or safeguarding against unsecure sites.

Bounce

Occurs when a visitor to a website navigates away from the site after viewing only one page before Blue Triangle's 30-minute session timeout.

Bounce Rate 

The percentage of traffic that navigates away from a site after viewing only one page before Blue Triangle's 30-minute session timeout.

Browser 

A piece of software that can access the internet and read HTML files in order to render web pages readable to users. Some examples of browsers are Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Firefox.

Browser/OS/Browser Version

The combination of browser, operating system, and browser version used whenever a visitor accesses a site or page.

Bucket Size

The portion of time used for data aggregation in charts and graphs.

C

Content Error

Occurs when elements on a page fail to load properly.

Conversion 

Occurs when a user on a web site takes a desired action. Examples of conversions include completing a transaction, filling out a form, or signing up for a service.

Conversion Rate 

The percentage of users on a web site who take a desired action. Examples of conversion rates include the percentage of customers completing a transaction, filling out a form, or signing up for a service.

Conversion Type

Either a standard dollar revenue calculation or a brand calculation, which are both expressed in dollars. The brand calculation takes the place of the revenue calculation when a site has no dollar value transaction, so a dollar amount is assigned to each conversion. An example of a brand conversion would be a click event where a user subscribes to a newsletter.

Cumulative Layout Shift

Measures the sum total of all individual layout shift scores for every unexpected layout shift that occurs during the entire lifespan of the page.

D

Datacenter Location

The datacenter a user's site experience was served from. Contact your Blue Triangle representative to set up a datacenter location.

Date of Performance Change

The date of a change made to a site that affects page performance. Setting the date allows for comparison of metrics before and after the change. Examples of performance changes are altering the order that third-party tags load or changing CDNs.

Delta

Shows the amount of change in a metric, found by subtracting the initial value of the metric from the final value of the metric. A positive delta indicates an increase in the value of the metric, while a negative delta indicates a decrease in the value.

Device

A piece of equipment used to access the internet. Examples of devices include tablets, cell phones, and computers. When a web page renders, the kind of device (user agent) accessing the page is read by the browser, and the way the page will display can change based on this information.

Discard Sessions Over 

A means for getting more accurate results in data analysis, this feature discards a percentage of sessions based on time. The slowest session is in the 100th percentile of traffic speed. For instance, discarding sessions over the 80th percentile eliminates the slowest 20% of site traffic in the analyzed period.

Domain Name System (DNS) 

The structure used for naming resources that access a network, including the Internet. While DNS associates several kinds of information with domains, it is most known for assigning IP addresses to domains. As a performance metric, DNS is the averaged time it takes to retrieve the IP address for the domain being called from the DNS (DNS = domainLookupEnd - domainLookupStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for more information.

DNS Hostname Overrides

Bypasses DNS protocols by entering a server-specific IP address for a domain. In development, this can be used to monitor or debug a specific server.

Document Object Model (DOM)

A programming interface that reads the nodes of an HTML, XML, or XHTML document hierarchically, translating nodes of the document into objects to render and modify applications or webpages using a scripting language (most commonly JavaScript for webpages). This interface can be used across multiple platforms, and is independent of programming language. Also see element.

DOM Duration (previously DOM Complete)

The average time for the browser to download a page's HTML and finish constructing the document object model (DOM) after the page is requested so that the domComplete event is triggered. Visually, this event occurs when the loading spinner stops spinning, which affects user perception of page speed. DOM Duration is measured as the time elapsed between the DOM Loading and DOM Complete events (DOM Duration = domComplete - domLoading). It occurs during the processing of the page. See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

DOM Content Loaded

The average time for the browser to parse all HTML and finish constructing the document object model (DOM) for a page once it is requested so that the .domContentLoadedEventEnd event is triggered. For this event to fire, scripts must have access to all elements via the DOM API. No parser can be blocking JavaScript on a page. Time to DOM Content Loaded is the time elapsed between Navigation Start and the DOM Content Loaded event (Time to DOM Content Loaded = domContentLoaded - navigationStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

DOM Interactive

The average time for the browser to parse all HTML and finish constructing the document object model (DOM) for a page once it is requested so that the .domInteractive event is triggered. After this event, users can interact with the page as it continues to load. Time to DOM Interactive is measured as the time elapsed between Nagivation Start and DOM Interactive (Time to DOM Interactive = domInteractive - navigationStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

Domain 
Represents an IP resource, usually understood as the name and address of a website.

Duration 

The average time all objects in a domain or individual objects spend loading. Within a domain, this does not include time between files firing. See W3C Resource Timing for more information.

E

Element 

Contains a portion of HTML that modifies the way a page displays.

Error Text 

Unique text on a webpage when an error occurred in the loading of a page. Having this identifier allows a monitor to report when an error occurred by searching for text known to appear on the page when an error occurs.

Exit

Occurs when a visitor navigates away from a page after visiting at least one other page on the site. An exit occurs automatically after a 3-hour window of activity.

Session Exit Rate

The percentage of sessions that navigate away from a page after viewing at least one other page on the site. ((Exits / Sessions) * 100)

F

Film Strip 

In web performance terms, a film strip is series of screen captures of a page at regular intervals over the life of the page loading.

First Byte

The amount of time once a page is requested for the first byte of data for the page to reach the user's browser. It indicates the responsiveness of the server. In the browser, this is measured as the time elapsed between Request Start and Response Start (First Byte = responseStart - requestStart). This is sometimes referred to as Round Trip Time (RTT). See W3C Navigation Timing for more information.

First Contentful Paint

First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures the time from navigation to the time when the browser renders the first bit of content from the DOM.

First Input Delay

Measures the time from when a user first interacts with your site (i.e. when they click a link, tap on a button, or use a custom, JavaScript-powered control) to the time when the browser is actually able to respond to that interaction.

First Paint

Measures the time elapsed from the initial HTTP request for a page until the browser displays the first content on the page. It is a browser-reported metric.

G

Geometric Mean

An averaging method in statistics and mathematics, which is calculated by multiplying each value in a data set and taking the root of that product equal to the quantity of values in that data set. Geometric mean is used where the methodology for arithmetic mean does not yield a correct result, such as with exponential growth.

GET

Requests the retrieval of information from the server in HTTP by RESTful API protocols.

Granularity

Changes the level of detail used for analyzing, down to 0.1 seconds.

H

HTTP Referer

Identifies the address of the webpage that linked to the resource being requested.

I

Internet Service Provider/Organization

The organization providing Internet access for visitors to the site.

Image Size

The average size of images in MB on the selected page or pages.

K

Kickoff Time

The time and date that a synthetic monitor begins running.

L

Landing Page 

The first page a visitor views in a session.

Largest Contentful Paint

Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures the time from navigation to the time when the browser renders the largest bit of content from the DOM.

Latency

The amount of time delay before a transfer of data begins. 

Locator

Tells a script which elements on a page to find and interact with.

M

Maintenance Window

Gives a known period in which a site may be undergoing maintenance and is unresponsive, or a known period in which a site is not functioning at its full capacity. Setting a maintenance window prevents the reporting of any data collected during these periods in order to limit statistical errors.

Maximum Exit Rate Threshold 

Changes the critical reporting baselines on the page for exit and exit rate. For instance, setting a threshold of 85% will cause pages with an exit rate beneath that maximum to be coded green, whereas pages with exit rates greater than the threshold are color coded yellow, orange, and red to designate how far off the threshold the exit rate for that page is. Percentages must be integers.

Maximum Onload Threshold 

Changes the critical reporting baselines on the page for onload. For instance, setting a threshold of 5 seconds will cause pages with an average onload time beneath that maximum to be coded green, whereas pages with onload greater than the threshold are color coded yellow, orange, and red to designate how far off the threshold the average onload for that page is. Times must be entered as whole seconds.

Measure Cached 

Allows the browser to reload the page without clearing its cache after running the initial measurement when enabled. Both measurements are stored, the second containing "-cached" at the end of the page name.

Minimum Sample Size 

Limits the results in Object Level Detail to objects with a file count above this number. This filter is most useful when sorting the waterfall in Object Level Detail by slowest load time rather than by file count to filter out objects with a low number of hits.

Mobile Emulation 

Enables a monitor to emulate traffic as a user agent on a mobile device.

Multi-Step, Real Browser Monitor 

Drives synthetic traffic to a site that crawls through a specific subset of site pages. These monitors can be used to mimic user paths. For example, a multi-step browser can follow top paths, top conversion paths, or marketing campaign paths that real users take.

N

Network Speed

The speed of traffic from a specific network, such as cellular networks or dial-up networks, measured as bandwidth.

Network Emulation

Emulates the way users on different connections experience the site by changing the bandwidth at which the monitor operates and allowing for built-in delays in loading.

O

Onload

The average amount of time required for the server to load the page completely so that the .onload event is triggered, including content, images, JavaScript, CSS, and other external files. Also known as Page Load Time (PLT). See w3c Navigation Timings for more information.

Operating System (OS)

The programming a piece of hardware runs on.

Opportunity

The predicted amount of revenue to be gained by improving performance.

Optimal Page Speed

The calculated onload time for a page necessary for the best return in revenue. This metric provided by Blue Triangle's algorithms should be the starting point for any page performance improvement.

Net Speed

The speed of traffic from a particular network such as a cellular network or dial-up network.

P

Page and Object Level Detail

A filtering option on the Performance Detail page for both RUM and Synthetic monitoring. Selecting this option beneath the scatter plot shows all page views that are not filtered out. From there, clicking on a page view in the left-hand chart will change the right chart display to show all page views for the session the selected page view was in. These page views may or may not have object level detail associated with them.

Page Group

Groups pages into categories based on page relationality. For instance, all pages in a checkout process can be grouped, as can all pages in a product category.

Page Name

The name of a specific page of a website.

Page Size (Compressed)

The average size of the selected page or pages if the server compressed the page or pages.

Page Size (Uncompressed)

The average size of the selected page or pages if the server did not compress the page or pages.

Page Text Verification

Allows a monitor to verify whether a page did or did not load successfully.

Page Timeout

The maximum time in seconds before an agent will timeout when hitting the target URL if the page is unresponsive.

Page View

The number of times a single page of the site was viewed in a designated period. A page view requires a page to load fully before it is counted.

Page View Exit Rate

The percentage of users viewing a page that navigate away from the site while after viewing more than one page ((Exits / Page Views) * 100). This is different from Session Exit Rate.

Page Views / Session

The average number of pages viewed by a user in a 30-minute session.

Path

Refers to the steps a customer takes when navigating a site. A path consists of a landing page and any subsequent pages a customer visits in a session.

Path Name

Assigns a title to the navigation path a customer might take through a site. Paths can be named for marketing campaigns, for regular site traffic, or for any other traffic pattern on the site.

Script Pattern

Enables a script to determine whether text of a matching or similar type is present or absent on a page.

Percent Delta

The percent of change in a metric between two specific data points. It is found by subtracting the initial value of the metric from the final value of the metric (the delta), and then dividing that result by the initial value of the metric and multiplying by 100. A positive percentage indicates an increase in the value of the metric, while a negative percentage indicates a decrease in the value.

Performance Metric

Different browser performance measurements such as Onload, Time to DOM Interactive, or Time to DOM Content Loaded, which are used for reporting results.

POST

Requests the sending of information to the server in HTTP, which can create new resources or modify existing ones. POST is a command to the server constructed using RESTful API.

Pre-Transfer

The time it takes the HTTP request to begin transferring data.

R

Redirect

The time elapsed between Redirect Start and Redirect End in the browser timings (Redirect = redirectEnd - redirectStart). This elapsed time is added into the calculation for First Byte time in the event of a redirect. See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

Region

Specifies where site traffic from real users originates by state, province, or other geographic area within a country.

Report Name

Assigns a name to a report for quick identification. The more informational the report name, the better (e.g. "Home Page Bounce Rate").

Report Time Period

Changes how often a report is generated.

Report Type

Configures what kind of metrics are included in a report.

Request

The time spent issuing the network request for a page load or a page resource load. In the browser, this is the time elapsed between Request Start and Response Start (Request = responseStart - requestStart). Also see First Byte for a page load.

Request Cookies

Contains additional information in clear text found in cookies during an HTTP request. Entering a cookie name and value will target only the specified cookie for retrieval.

Request Headers

Contains additional information about the resource to be fetched from the server or about the client accessing the server. Entering a header name and value will target only specified information within the specified header.

Retrieve HTML Body

Allows the HTTP request to retrieve the information contained in the Body element of the HTML document.

Revenue

Measures the average amount of money generated when a customer visits a site in order to estimate the value of each additional visitor. It is calculated by dividing the total revenue by the total number of visitors.

Revenue Attribution

The amount of revenue that can be attributed to a performance change in a given period.

Revenue Difference

The impact on revenue due to a change in web performance. A negative value typically means there was a degradation in site speed after the performance change, whereas a positive value typically means that page response time improved.

Rolling Revenue Analysis

The look-back period from the current date used for calculating opportunity and analyzing impact of changes on a site.

Rolling Start Time

The beginning of the time period selected moves with each refresh so that duration of the period remains the same.

Note: When the selected time period is seven days or greater, auto refresh start time must be rolling.

S

Safe Domain

Lists the domains that contribute to the building of a page that have been determined “safe” for users. To add a domain to the list, drag and drop the domain.

Object Level Detail Only

On the Performance Detail page for RUM and Synthetic Monitoring, selecting this option beneath the left scatter-plot shows all page views that are not filtered out and that have object level detail associated with them. Clicking a page view in the left chart will change the right scatter plot to reveal all page views for the session the selected page view was in. Selecting a triangular data point from the scatter plot for all page views in a session gives activity on the domain and object level.

Sales Funnel

A visual for a path taken by a potential customer, and can be predicted by looking at top paths in Marketing Insights. The goal for a sales funnel is to direct as much traffic as possible that enters a sales funnel all the way to a conversion at the end of the sales funnel.

Screen Capture

An image of the page either for a certain percentage of page hits once onload is reached or when an error is detected in the loading of the page.

Script Command

Instructs a script to run a program. Each program takes a specific action, sometimes toward a designated target on the page where the script is running.

Script

A set of commands coupled with targets for synthetic traffic to complete when hitting a page or a set of pages.

Script Name

Allows a script to be named by the kind of traffic it mimics, which pages the script hits, or the kind of actions the script takes. The script name populates the "Traffic Segment" field in the filter for the Synthetic Monitoring portion of the portal.

Script Timeout (single-page)

The maximum time in seconds before an agent will timeout when hitting the target URL if the page is unresponsive.

Script Timeout (multi-step)

A designated amount of time that a script will pause before continuing to the next action.

Script Upload

Allows the uploading of a Selenium IDE synthetic script that captures actions on a site and translates those actions into commands. See "How to Format Scripts" on the script creation page for further formatting instructions.

Selenium

A piece of software that automates browsers. Selenium IDE is a plugin for the Firefox browser and can be used to automate script creation for the Blue Triangle Portal. (A similar extension available in the Google Chrome browser is called Katalon.)

Sessions

The number of visitors who are active on a website. Sessions can include multiple page views and conversions. The session timeout for Blue Triangle occurs after 30 minutes of inactivity, and the maximum time limit for a session is 3 hours. Sessions are also known as visits.

Session Exit Rate

The percentage of sessions that navigate away from a page after viewing at least one other page on the site ((Exits / Sessions) * 100). This is different from Page View Exit Rate.

Single Page, Real Browser Monitor

Drives synthetic traffic to a site for measuring performance metrics on one page.

Sort By

Changes which objects are displayed in a waterfall chart based on the number of files an object contains or by the amount of time the object takes to load.

SSL

The average time required to process a request for a page through the web server's security protocol. SSL is one type of security protocol, and stands for Secure Sockets Layer, but here it is used as a generic term for any accepted security protocol on the server. In the browser, this is measured as the time elapsed between Secure Connection Start and Connect End (SSL = connectEnd - secureConnectionStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

SSL Certificate

Allows a browser to connect to the site through the security layer of the server that hosts the site domain. The SSL certificate is not exclusive to SSL only, and can apply to other security protocols. Retrieving the SSL certificate ensures the security of HTTP (HTTPS is Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure).

SSL Success Rate

The percentage of traffic that successfully received the SSL certificate for a site from the server.

Start Transfer

The time in the HTTP request until the first byte data is about to be transferred. This includes the time of the pre-transfer as well as the time the server takes to calculate the result.

Script Step

The name of a step in a script, usually based on the action being taken by the script.

Path Step

Identifies a step in a customer path. Steps are usually named after particular pages visited.

T

TCP

Short for Transmission Control Protocol, TCP is the time it takes to establish a connection to the web server after DNS lookup and the browser sends the HTTP GET/POST request to a web page URL. In the browser, it is measured as the time elapsed between Connect Start and Connect End (TCP = connectEnd - connectStart). See W3C Navigation Timing for further information.

Time to Interactive

A performance metric that measures how long it takes a page to become interactive. "Interactive" is defined as the point where: 1) The page has displayed useful content, which is measured with First Contentful Paint. 2) Event handlers are registered for most visible page elements. 3) The page responds to user interactions within 50 milliseconds.

Time Period

Measures from the start of the minute selected up to the beginning of the last minute selected. When selecting days, the period measures from the midnight of the first day up until midnight of the last day selected.

Timezone

Sets the timezone of the time period selected for reporting.

Top Combined Paths

The most popular paths visitors traverse on a website.

Top Converted Paths

The most popular paths resulting in conversions that visitors follow on a website.

Top Non-Converted Paths

The most popular paths resulting in no conversion that visitors follow on a website.

Total Blocking Time

Measures the total amount of time that a page is blocked from responding to user input, such as mouse clicks, screen taps, or keyboard presses.

Total Revenue

Measures the total amount of money generated as a result of all conversions on the site.

Total Revenue Loss

The amount of potential revenue lost since the date of a performance change.

Traffic

A general term for all visitors to a website. As a group of analytics, it includes page hits, page views, visits, unique visits, and sessions.

Traffic Medium

How users arrived at your content, including "organic search" for unpaid search traffic, "none" for direct traffic, and custom values such as e-mail traffic.

Traffic Segment

A category that groups the kind of traffic that visits a site, determined by the owners of a site and identified using cookies or JavaScript variables. Examples of traffic segments include repeat visitors or visitors from marketing campaigns.

Traffic Source/Referrer

Selecting a referrer only allows measurements from users that came from a particular source, such as a search engine, other website, or a direct navigation.

Trailing 30 Day Sales

The total revenue generated in the 30 days prior to a selected end date.

Trim

Hides data slower than the trim time to eliminate statistically insignificant or incorrect data. The default trim is 120 seconds.

U

Unknown Domain
Used to identify the domains that contribute to the building of a page that have not yet been deemed safe or unsafe.

Unsafe Domain

Used to identify the domains that contribute to the building of a page that have been determined a security risk on the page.

URL

The web address of a page. In more technical terms, URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and points to the location of a resource by including the access mechanism for that resource. In a URL, examples of this access mechanism would be http:// (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and ftp:// (File Transfer Protocol). URLs are a subset of URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers). All URLs are URIs, but only URIs that include a resource access mechanism are URLs.

User

Any browser that navigates to a website, tracked over the duration of a session using cookies. Browser cookies also allow differentiation between new and returning users. Also known as a visitor.

User Agent String

Assigns a string as the name of the user agent when creating a monitor.

V

Variable Name

A name given to an object on a page. When identifying a variable name for a script command, the script will look for the matching variable name of an object on the page that the command can target.

Verify Text

Unique text on a webpage when it loads correctly. Having this identifier allows a monitor to report when a page loads successfully by searching for text known to appear on the page when a successful page load occurs.

Visitor

Any browser that navigates to a website, tracked over the duration of a session using cookies. Browser cookies can allow differentiation between new and returning visitors. Also known as a user.

W

Wait Time
The amount of time a script will wait before continuing to the next step.

Window ID

An identifier for a window that allows Selenium scripts to switch between windows during operation. Selenium scripts can only operate on one window at a time, so this allows a script to navigate a page like a user would, interacting with popups and pages that open in a new window or tab.