# Read your help center statistics

_Category: Statistics and feedback_

Statistics shows how readers use your help center: how many visit, what they search for, which articles they read and how they rate them. Use it to decide what to write or fix next.

**Who can do this:** Owners, Admins and Editors · **Plans:** All plans (how far back you can look depends on your plan)

## Open Statistics

1. In the left menu, click **Statistics**. You can also go to https://helpcenter.io/app/statistics.
2. Pick a period at the top: **Today**, **7 days**, **14 days**, **30 days**, **90 days** or **1 year**. Every card updates to match.

![Screen recording. The tiles compare the last 7 days with the 7 before. What needs your attention turns the numbers into next steps. Click 30 days to look further back. Every card now covers the last 30 days.](https://helpcenter-io.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/self/u5oLSpfGbCxu1zPckAgtTVrRruleNIpjEz8Cqwe8.gif)
Statistics opens on the last 7 days.

## How far back you can look

How much history you can see depends on your plan. Periods longer than your plan's history are grayed out and show **Not available on your current plan**. See [Plans and pricing](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/plans-and-pricing).

## The numbers at the top

| Tile | What it counts |
| --- | --- |
| **Visitors** | Unique browsers that visited your help center. |
| **Searches** | Searches readers made. A search counts once, not once per letter typed. |
| **Article views** | Times an article was opened. |
| **Views / visitor** | How many articles a visitor opens, on average. |
| **Satisfaction** | The share of article ratings that were positive, with the number of ratings it's based on. See [Article ratings and reader feedback](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/article-ratings). |

The first four tiles also show the change compared with the period before, of the same length, for example "vs prev 7 days". The strip below the tiles shows all-time totals: **Categories**, **Published**, **Drafts**, **Private** and **Team members**.

How far back you can look depends on your plan. On **Bootstrap** the periods go up to **14 days**, on **Growth** up to **30 days**, and on **Catalyst** up to **1 year**. Growth keeps 60 days of statistics: your longest range is 30 days, and the 30 days before it are what the tiles compare it with. See [Plans and pricing](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/plans-and-pricing).

## The cards

- **What needs your attention** turns the numbers into next steps: searches that found no answer, articles that are underperforming, questions AI struggles with, and your top performer. Most come with a button that takes you to the right place.
- **Traffic trends** charts visitors, searches, article views and contact requests day by day.
- **Visitor journeys** follows visitors from **Visited** to **Searched**, **Read an article**, **Self-served** or **Contacted support**. A visit counts as self-served when the visitor searched or read an article and didn't contact support. You also see the average steps before self-serving or contacting you, the share of visitors who searched first, the bounce rate (visitors who left after one page), and **Recent sessions**. Each recent session shows how it ended, when it started, its number of steps and how long it lasted. Click one to see its timeline step by step: what the visitor searched for, which articles they opened and how they rated them.
- **Content performance** and **Satisfaction** show your most read and weakest articles. See [Find your best and weakest articles](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/content-performance).
- **What people search for** lists searches, failed searches and content gaps. See [See what people search for](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/search-statistics).
- **What people ask AI about your articles** appears when AI Answers is on. It shows the questions readers ask about specific articles and how often they were answered well.

## Filter the numbers

Click **Filters**, choose what you need and click **Apply filters**. **Reset** clears them.

- **Category** narrows article views and the article cards to one category. Visitors and searches always cover your whole help center.
- **Language** shows one language, if your help center has more than one.
- **Surface** shows one place readers use: **Full help center**, **Widget**, **Embedded help center** or **FAQ sections**.
- **Include bots** adds crawler and AI bot traffic, which is left out by default.
- **Exclude IP addresses** leaves out visits from addresses you add, such as your office.
- **Traffic mode** switches from **Engagement events** to **Backend requests**, which shows raw server traffic, bots included. In that mode, the insights, journeys, article and search cards are hidden. Backend requests may not count visits that reach your help center through a subfolder of your website; Engagement events does.
- **Bot family** appears in **Backend requests** mode. Pick one crawler or AI bot to see only its requests, such as **ChatGPT**, **Anthropic**, **Perplexity** or **Googlebot**, or pick **Other bots** or **Non-bot traffic**. It shows which AI assistants and search engines read your help center.

## How the numbers are counted

- **Real readers only.** Statistics counts real browsers running JavaScript, so your totals can be lower than tools that count every server request.
- **Updated overnight.** Visits and searches are processed once a night, so **Today** often looks empty. Today's traffic shows up tomorrow. Ratings show up right away.
- **Private articles stay private.** If an article is private and hasn't been shared with you, you see **Private article** with a lock instead of its title. Its numbers still count.

## Export your numbers

Statistics has no export button. To get the numbers into a spreadsheet or report, use the API. See [Analytics](https://developers.helpcenter.io/content/analytics-api) on the developer portal.

## Related articles

- [See what people search for](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/search-statistics)
- [Find your best and weakest articles](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/content-performance)
- [Article ratings and reader feedback](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/article-ratings)
- [Help center metrics that matter](https://self.helpcenter.io/content/help-center-metrics)