Time on Page tends to cause confusion regarding the specifics of how they’re calculated.
- Google Analytics keeps counting your time on a page regardless of whether the browser window is an invisible tab or a hidden.
- Google Analytics tracks time on site and time on page by measuring the difference between the timestamps of hits. If the visit is a bounce no time will be recorded.
Google Analytics calculated periods of time by looking at the difference between the time of the first-page hit and the time of the last page hit. Here is an example session below:
The amount of time spent on the first page (Time on Page) is Time at hit 2 (10:05) – Time at hit 1 (10:00), which is 5 minutes.
The amount of time spent on the total site (Session Duration) is Time at the last session hit (10:10) – Time at first session hit (10:00), which is 10 minutes total.
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