The Site Usage option in the dropdown menu that appears when you click on the Gear icon in a SharePoint Online page allows site owners and administrators to view detailed analytics and usage data for the site.
This helps in understanding user engagement, tracking traffic trends, identifying popular content, and managing external sharing.
To access it, select the settings gear icon and then choose "Site usage."
Key information and features provided on the Site Usage page include:
- Overall traffic metrics: Reports on unique viewers (total individual visitors), site visits (total visits to content), and average time spent per user, with trends available for the last 7, 30, or 90 days, plus lifetime stats since February 2018.
- Popular content: A list of the most viewed site pages, news posts, and documents from the last 7 days, sortable by unique viewers, visits, or time spent.
- Usage insights: Breakdowns by device (e.g., desktop vs. mobile web visits) and by time (hourly visit trends in the viewer's local time zone), covering 7, 30, or 90 days.
- Shared with external users: A list of files shared externally via links that require sign-in, including file details like type, name, last modified date, and modifier.
- Export functionality: The ability to download a 90-day usage report as a .csv file, covering metrics like unique viewers, site visits, popular platforms, and site traffic (with popular content data limited to the last 7 days; note that average time spent and external sharing data are not included in exports).