filtering out excessively long views from google analytics

Question

I have a landing page I'm watching pretty closely and I'm trying to track the avg view time on that page to see if it's going up or down based on changes.

The problem is some day in December the avg view time is registering over an hour which is throwing off the readability of the graph (most views are 30 seconds to 6 minutes). Is there any way to filter out views over 20 minutes so I can view the graph more easily?

Answer 1

Yes, there is a way. What you are really trying to do is to filter "outliers" from the graph.

Initially I thought to use custom filters , but you can't use them on metrics (Avg. Time on Page is a "metric") and metrics filters are not obeyed by the graph. When you try to filter the metric, the graph area shows this warning:

Search constraints on metrics can not be applied to this graph.

BUT, you can use the "advanced segments" feature.

1. Go to the report you use currently.
2. Near the top, under report title, click "advanced segments"
3. On the far right, click "+ New Custom Segment"
4. Change "Include" to "Exclude"
5. Click the green drop-down and change the value to "Time on Page"
6. Leave "Greater Than" as-is
7. Enter 1200 (seconds) for 20 miniutes
8. Click "Save Segement"

That new segment is automatically applied to the report and graph.