Web Analytics: More on Time on Site Calculations

Following Avinash’s great post I’ve already mentioned yesterday, I re-read the entire post and more than 3o interesting comments.

The main problem as Avinash explains, is that we can’t actually calculate the time on page and time on site where we don’t have an “exit” mark.

This basically means, that most of our “bounces”, “zero” time on site and “short visits” (depending on your software verbiage) are related not only to those who close their browser right after entering your page, but to those who viewed 1 page, perhaps even for a while – but didn’t go any further.

Well I say delete them!

The problem with zero time on site

The zero time on site is screwing up the entire time on site statistics of your pages.
Here’s an example for a website we manage where the average time on site is 91 seconds.

Average Time on Site - All VisitorsAverage Time on Site - All Visitors

Looks fine to the untrained eye: 91 seconds and 2.2 pages per visit – So is this the correct number? Continue reading “Web Analytics: More on Time on Site Calculations”

Web Analytics: How Time on Site is Measured?

Avinash Kaushik (see his RSS on my homepage 🙂 ), the author of “Web Analytics – An Hour a Day” and “Occams Razor” blog, wrote an excellent and comprehensive post on the methodology behind “time on site” and “time on page” metrics.

For all of you who always wonder how this is calculated and how come sometimes the numbers don’t seem too logic – Avinash exaplains the method from A to Z in a simple and logic way. Highly recommended! Continue reading “Web Analytics: How Time on Site is Measured?”