How does Google calculate time on page?

[AliceFowell89]

Hello Everyone,

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

[TomClarke]

Recently I read a great article on this topic http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/02/29/understanding-google-analytics-time-calculations/
From that article I learned that time on page is calculated in two different ways. The calculation depends if the visit has one pageview or if the visit has multiple pageviews.

[dewalds86]

Is this really important? Al that matter is that it does get measured.

[JohnVilson]

Hi there,

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 it is 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 timestamp 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.

[Kate Evans]

The calculation of a time depends if the visitor has one page view or multiple page views and in most cases the Google does not calculate time spent on a page when there is only one page viewed in the visit. So when there are multiple page views in a visit the calculation is based on the start time between the current page and the start time of the next page load.

[Smart Ranking]

Is this really important? Al that matter is that it does get measured.

If you understand how its working, you can try to optimise this very much important SEO factor for Google.

[Gharkul]

The key to understanding Google Analytics time calculations is understanding the data that is sent to Google. We affectionately refer to these data as HITS. I know, that’s a terrible term to use when talking about analytics. But they really are hits.

Data hits are the image requests sent to Google Analytics. Three are six different types of data hits in Google Analytics:

Pageview hits
Event hits
Ecommerce transaction hits
Ecommerce transaction item hits
User defined hits (this is the predecessor of custom variables)
Social plugin hits