How to calculate the site stay time and page stay time

Time on site (TS) and time on page (TP) are important indicators of user experience analysis and traffic quality monitoring. However, few people know how the average time of Website access (average time on site) is calculated. Whether it's using a competitive intelligence analysis tool or a website analysis solution (data obtained through weblog or Javascript tags in the website analysis solution, few people know how the average Website access time is calculated ).

Therefore, this article is intended to explain how Tp and Ts are computed.
 
Case 1:

When someone visits your website homepage, your website analysis tool starts to calculate a session for this visitor ). Then the visitor browsed the other two pages and then left your website (you can close your browser or enter a different website address in the address bar, or click the link to another website on your website ......) For the sake of simplicity, we regard this process as a session.

What we want to know is as follows:

TP = time spent on a page );

TS = time spent on the web site ).

Assume that the session starts from:

Currently, all website analysis tools can accurately know the time when a page access request occurred, but this is not enough to explain how many Tp and TS actually exist, because we need more information:

The user does not have a bounce (jump out), and clicks a link on the home page to jump to page 2. The current website analysis tool can also get the start time of page 2, and can know that it is the same user, therefore, you can easily calculate the TP of the homepage:

TP (homepage) =-= 5 minutes.

Some content on page 2 attracts users, so the user continues to visit page 3

See:

TP (page 2) =-= 25 minutes.

The user exits from page 3 and ends the session:

So how long does this user stay on page 3? The problem occurs because none of the current website analysis tools capture the "timestamp" when the user leaves the page 3 ", in this way, we cannot calculate how long the user has stayed on page 3! Therefore:

TP (page 3) = 0 minutes.

Because the request time for the next page cannot be provided! Website analysis tools do not know how long a user stays on the last page of a session. This is true for most website analysis tools.

Let's show the stay time of website analysis tools on each page:

TP (homepage) = 5 minutes

TP (page 2) = 25 minutes

TP (page 3) = 0 minutes

So what is the access time of this session on the entire website?

TS = 30 minutes

Is it reasonable?

I think it may be unreasonable because you don't know how much time visitors spend on the last page, therefore, the time statistics provided by the website analysis tool are generally less than the time the user actually stays on the website.
 
Case 2:

How is time on site and time on page calculated when browsing a website using a browser with multiple tabs?

Firefox's multi-tag page browsing method has earned it a reputation, but it is troublesome for computing time on page and time on site. When a user opens a link to the same website on another tab, that is, browsing the same website through two tab pages at the same time, what does time on page and time on site calculate?

This situation confuses the Time Calculation by the website analysis tool.

It is a common scenario for users to browse websites. Through this scenario, we can understand the impact of Multi-tag page browsing ......

• A user visits the home page and opens a link on this page in the new tab. At this time, the home page occupies a tab page, clicking the link to the newly opened page 4 occupies another tab page.
• When page 4 is viewed, page 4 is not closed. Return to the tab of the home page to continue browsing the home page.
• When you browse the home page, you click another link on the home page to jump to page 2, but no new tab is opened, which is displayed on the current tab page.
• Next, the user switches to the tab of page 4, clicks the link to Go to page 5, and closes the current tab on page 5.
• Next, the user clicks the link on page 2 to page 3. Of course, it is the same tab. Finally, the tab is closed on page 3 and the session ends.

In this case, how should time on site be calculated? Different website analysis tools provide two calculation methods for this "Multi-tab" browsing behavior.

Method 1:

The website analysis tool records the preceding multi-tab browsing by tab one by one, that is, the calculation below:

Statistical result output: two access processes (two sessions). Each session corresponds to one tab.

Session1 (tab of the home page ):

TP (homepage) = 5 minutes

TP (page 2) = 25 minutes

TP (page 3) = 0 minutes

TS (the entire access time of the Same tab) = 30 minutes

Session2 (tab of page 4 ):

TP (page 4) = 6 minutes

TP (page 5) = 0 minutes

TS (the entire access duration of the new tab) = 6 minutes

In this case, two sessions and one UV (unique visitor) are recorded in the website analysis tool report ).

Method 2:

Some website analysis tools merge these tabs into the same access process to eliminate the impact of multiple tabs.

In the above example, we can convert the expression-mark the same process, and different colors represent different tabs.

Statistical result output: one access process (that is, one session) contains two tabs. The whole access process is reorganized as a timestamp.

This session:

TP (homepage) = 1 minute

TP (page 4) = 4 minutes

TP (page 2) = 2 minutes

TP (page 5) = 23 minutes

TP (page 3) = 0 minutes

TS = 30 minutes

Which of the following statistical methods is more reasonable and preferred?

Be sure to ask your website analysis service provider which of the above two methods is used to calculate the time and access process of multi-tab (Tab page) browsing.

More and more people are using multi-tab browsing. Therefore, the method used will have a huge impact on the final data output of your website analysis-no doubt, the final data calculated by the two methods must be significantly different.

Solution:

Get the page (Tab) Closing Time(To close a page, you can close the browser or tab, type A Different website address in the address bar, or click the link from your website to another website ......)

The latest visual analysis tool "State Analysis", independently developed by tribal State (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd., obtains the page closing time, and calculates the time difference between page opening and closing by calculating the page closing time, you can easily and accurately obtain the page stay time and session time.

This session:

TP (homepage) = 5 minutes

TP (page 2) = 25 minutes

TP (page 3) = 1 minute

TP (page 4) = 6 minutes

TP (page 5) = 3 minutes

TS = 31 minutes

The page stay time is obtained accurately, but what does it mean? The next article will be discussed in detail. Stay tuned!

Reproduced from: http://www.bangfx.com/research? P = 651

How to calculate the site stay time and page stay time