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I have the following Custom Report set up in Google Analytics:
Metrics:
Dimensions:
So a report looks like this:
Page Avg Time on Page Avg Time on Site
/an-article 00:03:14 00:00:11
/another-article 00:05:11 00:01:07
/something-written 00:03:00 00:00:31
Why is it that for each 'page', the 'site views' are significantly lower?
Google Analytics counts bounces (where only one page was viewed by the visitor) as having a "time on site" of 0. But it still counts the full time on page for that visit. [Source.]
If a site has lots of bounces – where many people view a single article you've written and then leave, for example – this will skew the average time on site downwards. This makes it possible for "Avg Time on Site" to be lower than "Avg Time on Page".
/your-article/another-article, spends another 5 minutes reading, then closes the tab.Total time spent on page / number of visitors
5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 / 5
Total time spent on site / number of visitors
0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 10 / 5
The key is that the bounced visitors count as 0 towards the total time on site, but as 5 towards the total time on page. Google doesn't discount the zeroes – they still contribute to the average.
(Aside: in my opinion, Google should consider using the time on page as time on site for single-page visits, which might give a better representation of average time on site. In the example above, average time on site would then be 6 minutes, which is the truthful average, bigger than the average time on page, and far less confusing.)
$timeOfLastPageView - $timeOfFirstPageView, which equals 0 on single-page visits since the two values are the same. There's no way to use time-on-page as time-on-site for single page visits.
– Lèse majesté
Jan 9 '12 at 14:33
See how avgTimeOnPage is calculated: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets/pagetracking#ga:avgTimeOnPage
A simple example
Average time on page = 5 minutes
Total time spent on page / (page views - exits)
5 / (5 - 4)
Average time on site = 1 minute
Total time spent on site / number of visitors
0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 5 / 5
There is something confusing in your article: here is your example: Average time on page = 5 minutes 5 visitors spend exactly 5 minutes reading /your-article 4 of them close their tab after reading. 1 of them visits /another-article, spends another 5 minutes reading, then closes the tab.
if 4 of them close their tab after reading (bounce), time = 0 minutes and not 5 minutes so the calculation for Average time site or average time page would be (0+0+0+0+5)
