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How does Google Calculate time on page?
lisahandson
Posts: 64
Joined: 01 Dec 15
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02 May 16 12:06 pm

How does Google Calculate time on page?

Hi everyone,

I would like to know that How does Google Calculate time on page?

Welcome your comments.
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maryt
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02 May 16 10:20 pm

 If you are referring to the time spent by a visitor on the page, you can track this using Google Analytics.
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carolinemurphy
Posts: 105
Joined: 10 Jun 15
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03 May 16 11:30 am

 Hi Lisa,

Google puts a time stamp whenever any user lands on a particular page then it compares the time stamp of one page with the other. E.g. Any user enters the site on Page A and moves to Page B then lands to Page C and finally leaves the site. In this case, a time stamp is put on Page A suppose its 10:10, when the user moves to Page B, another time stamp is placed on Page B, suppose its 10:20 and then when the user lands on Page C, another time stamp is placed, lets say 10:30. Now to calculate time on Page A, Google will subtract the time stamp on Page B with that of A. In this case, 10:20-10:10 which will come to 10 minutes for Page A.

Hope, It helps.
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aletta
Posts: 3392
Joined: 09 Jul 06
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03 May 16 10:26 pm

 ^^^ What Caroline said.

But importantly: Google Analytics can't timestamp when someone LEAVES your site.

So if the user lands on page C at 10:30 and then closes their browser window or searches for something else in their address bar at 10:35, Google doesn't know that they spent 5 minutes on your page. They just know that page C was the last page that user viewed.

So the "time on page" isn't totally reliable.
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besupernatural
Posts: 28
Joined: 29 Apr 16
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21 Jul 16 7:42 am

 Google actually do not turns on a timer when you come to the page. First, it tracks when you came to the page, then it tracks when the session was over and then it consuming these two values and all. Actually, if you'd like to know where he takes the data when counting the oin-page time, the first thing is:
Google Analytics code specified on the pages of your website;
the second thing is: Browser Google Chrome, but I'm not actually sure if its not such a complex task for google to track the time via Chrome and compare it with the data from analytics.

Also, I have question about the tracking on-page time. How do you think, will the google analytics count as the end of the session on the website when user come from the page where the GA is installed to the page where it doesn't?
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magentoocodewire2015
Posts: 94
Joined: 07 Apr 16
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21 Jul 16 9:36 am

 It is not easy to measure the time on the website but with the help of Google analytics tool, you can track the time on page.
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mrprinson
Posts: 13
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21 Jul 16 12:23 pm

 does the statistic getting fake results duo to bots and crawlers?
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aquibsk123
Posts: 42
Joined: 13 Feb 16
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27 Jul 16 11:49 am

 Measuring time on a website can be hard. Really hard. Every web analytics tool has issues, and that includes Google Analytics.

I’d like to clarify how Google Analytics track time on page and visit length. It’s probably different than you think.
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anurag.gupta
Posts: 21
Joined: 15 Oct 15
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29 Mar 17 9:01 am

 Hello lisahandson,


The time spent survey the last page is (as a matter of course) excluded in the time on page computation by Google examination. This is on account of they can just quantify the information that they are sent.

Here are is the information they get:
page one stacked at 10:03:00
page two stacked at 10:03:10
page three stacked at 10:03:20

So the details would be:
Visit length: 20s
visit site visits: 3
Page one: sees 1, time on page: 10s
page two: sees 1, time on page: 10s
page three: sees 1, time on page 0s

So for a more significant normal time on page utilize your second equation: AvgTimeOnPage = add up to time on page/(add up to site hits add up to exits).


Thanks,
Anurag Gupta
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