What's the difference between "landing page" and "starting page" in Behaviour Flow?

  • Landing Page: The first page from the user's first session.
  • Starting Page: The first page from the user's current session.

I believe this explains all the questions about the report:

  • Landing page and starting page are not the same thing. It explains how it is possible for the traffic to get split.
  • Return users often come back into the home page. That is why many users move from a deep landing page (from their first session) to a starting page of Home (for their current session).

I believe the landing page is the page they first arrived at on your website. The starting page is the page they were on when they started that session. A single visit can include more than one session, hence the difference. I have absolutely no evidence for this opinion. I see a number of other people probably smarter than I am think it is related to visitors using the site search function, however I have access to a large number of websites analytics and have found this issue on some sites that do not have a site search at all.