Shawn this is some excellent thinking and analysis and it brings up very important points regarding Google Analytics that many don't seem to realize.

I myself have tried many times to explain these points to clients, etc., and it seems to be something most people have never realized. I find many business owners and people who are tasked with studying this data take what they see in GA as fact and don't use reasoning such as this.

Well done!

Good post.

I knew about Time on page, but I never give any thought to Time on site.

Thank!

Hi,

great post but just wonder if Google isn't doing all these calculations already.

I would kind of expect them to be smart enough and apply all the algebra you talk about.

Thanks

@Jesse:

Thanks for the compliment! I also think it's important that users know what metrics actually represent. It's not that the metrics aren't useful - they are - but as with any web analytics platform, it's more important to focus on trends than accuracy. Thanks for reading!

@Sebastien:

Thanks for the compliment, and thanks for reading!

@Claudiu:

Google isn't doing these calculations already (we've tested these metrics), although I'm sure they are aware of the limitations of Time on Site and Time on Page. Google (or rather the people there) are definitely smart, but there are still some limitations to the way that data is collected for any web analytics platform. Time on Site and Time on Page are useful, but I think it's important that users know these metrics, just like most other web metrics, aren't 100% accurate.

They instead provide useful benchmarks that you can use to measure trends in your data. This is much more important than accuracy, and can be said of just about every single metric within Google Analytics.

Hi, regarding "time on page" one question... do you know how we can see the difference between "new visitors" and "returning visitors". Thanks a lot

@Daniele:

Time on Page only makes sense when you're looking at metrics for a specific page. So you would have to first pick a page you want to measure, which you find in the Top Content report. Once you've found the page you're looking for, you can click on the page name to drill down. Once you've drilled down, you can then segment by Visitor Type to see the Time on Page for New vs. Returning Visitors.

You can, however, see Time on Site pretty easily, by using the New vs. Returning report found under the Visitors section.

Hope that helps!

Hi Shawn, thanks a lot for your explanation, we found this option, but the problem when you segment by "Visitor Type" is that you have the "Avg. Time on Site" and not "Avg. Time on Page" (It seems a missing option in Google Analytics). Thanks a lot

@Daniele:

Ah - I see what you mean. You can sidestep this limitation by simply creating a profile that only includes new visitors (or returning visitors). You can do this with a custom include filter, using 'Visitor Type' and either 'new' or 'returning' as the filter pattern.

This way, when you look at the content reports in one of these new profiles, the Time on Page will only apply to New or Returning Visitors, but not both. Hope that helps!

Thanks a lot Shawn

Great article. As a video streaming site, we have noticed a huge difference between our StatCounter numbers and our Google Analytics numbers. If someone watches a 30 minute video on our site, it can throw off the Google Analytics if they exit off that page. Anybody running a video streaming site needs to note the differences cmopared to text based sites.

This is some interesting analysis of the metric and makes perfect sense. Very good post.

I like to combine this analysis with pages per visit, especially with sites that have a lot of pages, like large retail e-commerce sites. I think this helps give a full picture of level of engagement a user has with a web site.

@Chris:

Another good thing to keep in mind is that you can extend the timeout if you need to - which is important if you have pages that users can spend 30 minutes on. You can get the official instructions here, but basically it involves adding a single line to your Google Analytics tracking code on those pages. Thanks for reading!

@Andy:

I agree, and there are additional ways to measure user engagement. My personal favorite is by using qualitative data (surveys and usability tests) and heat maps to find out if and how users are finding what they need. Thanks for reading!

Interesting. I'd heard of bounce rates being measured, but it makes sense if time on site is being measured too.

As you pointed out, it's difficult to work out if no Google-based tracking (Analytics) is installed on the site, and the user doesn't return back to Google for another search.

Interesting concept!