Interactive example journey

Simulate visitor journeys across traffic sources and destination pages.

Follow a fictional online day and observe how a need, notification or recommendation can lead from one platform to another and eventually to a website. This explains possible visitor routes; it does not create traffic or track real people.

Start an example journey → Follow a route to an article Analyze a population sample

Each run is an educational model, not a prediction of a real person.

A playful three-dimensional illustration of a fictional internet user moving between connected search, messaging, video, maps, shopping and email paths.

Build the next run

Choose a day or set a focused mission.

The same run code always creates the same journey. Change it to meet another fictional person.

Population view

Compare hundreds of calibrated online days.

Create a synthetic cohort for German internet users aged 16–74. The age structure, recent internet use, selected activity reach and device availability follow public 2024/2025 aggregates.

Choose the cohort you want to compare.

Start with 500 people for a stable overview. A larger synthetic sample reduces random simulation noise, but cannot remove uncertainty in the model itself.

Your fictional journey

Robin 940 is looking for a useful expert article

Mission: how people discover a useful expert article

56 years old Retired Occasional user rural Tends toward Music and podcasts

Available devices: Smartphone, Laptop or desktop, Connected TV

Usual services: Another messenger, Google Search, Video meeting

Run code trail-2026-0728

1Attention sessions
11 minActive time
13.7 MBModeled data
0Background jobs

Journey player

Follow every handoff, page by page.

The current location changes as the person moves from an app or results page into the browser and onto the destination website. Choose any step to inspect it.

Finish the journey to reveal a trail badge.

Read the signals

Starts, attention and data tell different stories.

Search and information2 visits
11 min time13.7 MB data

Full trace

Every location, action and quiet transfer.

Search results and destination pages remain separate places. Background transfers can continue while the visible location changes.

  1. Google Search · Search field

    Turn “how people discover a useful expert article” into a focused query

    Current location: Google Search · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 1.44 MB
  2. Google Search · Search results page

    Load results for the research question

    Current location: Google Search · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 4.32 MB
  3. Google Search · Titles and snippets

    Compare relevance, specificity and visible source

    Current location: Google Search · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 1.44 MB
  4. Google Search · Selected result

    Open the most promising expert article

    Current location: Google Search · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 1.44 MB
  5. Web browser · Loading selected address

    Leave the entry platform and connect to the publisher

    Google Search → Web browser · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 792 KB
  6. Expert publisher website · Article destination page

    Check the title, author, date and opening section

    Web browser → Expert publisher website · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 1.55 MB
  7. Expert publisher website · Article overview

    Scan headings and find the relevant section

    Current location: Expert publisher website · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 792 KB
  8. Expert publisher website · Relevant article section

    Read the explanation and compare it with the original need

    Current location: Expert publisher website · Smartphone · Wi-Fi · 1.93 MB

Use the pattern

What this route helps you notice.

1

An opening is not the same as attention

Messaging may create many short starts, while video or work can occupy fewer but much longer sessions.

2

Traffic grows through handoffs

A message, recommendation, search result or newsletter can hand a person to a browser, product page or expert article.

3

The moment changes the channel

A commute favors the phone; work favors the computer; evening free time makes longer video or gaming sessions more plausible.

Compare traffic sources for a digital product → Simulate a path to an expert article

Questions answered

Understand online behavior without confusing the signals.

What is an internet user simulator?

It creates a fictional journey from a run code. The person receives a daily context, devices and preferences; triggers then lead to foreground visits, handoffs and background transfers.

Is this real user tracking?

No. The simulator does not observe visitors or reproduce a real individual. It creates educational scenarios from transparent starting assumptions.

Why does the person not always start with Google?

Online activity can begin with a notification, a habit, a concrete task or a scheduled event. Search is one important route, but messages, feeds, email, maps and apps can also create the first step.

Can I test how someone reaches an expert article?

Yes. Choose the article mission and enter a topic. The run can begin with search, a social recommendation, a message, a newsletter or an AI-assisted search before reaching the article.

Are the displayed probabilities measured population statistics?

Some inputs are calibrated to official German age, internet-use, activity-reach and device aggregates. Session starts, transitions and most durations remain model assumptions. The population view keeps these two kinds of values separate.