Bounce Rate

[CraigAddyman]

Howdy Mozzers

Does anyone know if the 'average time on site' in Google analytics is calculated with bounce rate included?

For example if you have a 50% bounce rate and your average time on site is 2 minutes the actual time would be 4 minutes as the 50% bounce rate time is classed as 0.

I hope that is clear!

Cheers

[MDMadeline]

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a certain page or site who only visited one page and then left the site. It's not related to the amount of time spent on a site. The amount of time spent on a site is the average time overall for time spent on the site before leaving. Hope that helps.

[DaveGerecht]

Going back a step, "Average Time On Site' in my opinion, is not a relevant statistic any more as internet connection speed increases.

With dial up connection the customer paid per minute on-line. Now with flat rates for broadband people leave pages open when they step away from their computers - I've had pages open at the office literally for days! That would really muck up anyone's stats. (That's not why I do it though)

[AdamThompson]

There is an easy way to fix this. Create a custom advanced segment to only include visits with pageviews > 1. This will allow you to see avg time on site for all visitors excluding bounces.

[AaronSchinke]

I think it could massively confuse things if they didn't take it into account. Should those page views be deleted as well then? Do they not count as unique visitors or visitors at all?

Don;t get me wrong, I see where you are coming from, but the completely objective data is what makes GA so valuable.

[aarondicks]

It's a shame Google are counting this. I see their reasons though I believe. Bounces did originally want to view your site, so they are a visitor in theory. It does skew the data massively however

[CraigAddyman]

Yep good answer cheers.

Conclusion - Totally inaccurate!

[AdamThompson]

Here is one source: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/09/reverting-back-to-original-average-time.html

[anthonydnelson]

There is some great info about this on this link: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/thread?tid=7f1a0537ed9f8fe8&hl=en

Rather than me paraphrasing and messing it up or copying/plagiarizing their answer, I'll just point you in the right direction.

[CraigAddyman]

Can you provide a link to the horses mouth?

[AdamThompson]

Average time on site includes bounces (counted as 0 seconds) in the calculations.

See http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/01/standard-metrics-revisited-time-on-page-and-time-on-site.html

[CraigAddyman]

Agreed! Very misleading and inaccurate if it is included.

[CraigAddyman]

Haha don't worry your safe...for now!

Like all thing its should be used as a relative measure but it can be quite misleading especially for an obsessed client who doesn't know the real meaning of bounce rate, hence the reason for my  question so I can explain it but the time on site is also misleading if the bounce rate is included.

[SEOCharles-]

I'm pretty sure that bounced traffic isn't calculated in the average time on site, Analytics put 0 because it can't calculate the time on site unless a visitor hit a second page within the same Analytics code (site). I'm not 100% sure but that would be really irrelevant to include bounced traffic to this metric.

[Entrusteddev]

Yeah, I'm assuming that from Googles view of analytics is post search, thus time after search...

I might be completely wrong (don't sue, kill or hurt me!), however I couldn't find a better answer from a more reputable source!

[CraigAddyman]

Hmm I guess it could be clearer and be labelled as 'avg. time on site' rather than 'time after search' which I assume your referring to?

[aarondicks]

I've always believed that the time on site is a global average of all visitors. Never thought to question myself until now though. Aran seems to have found the answer. Thanks

[Entrusteddev]

Hi, your question led me on an interesting trip though Google help, revisiting the basics of analytics.

Google define the Bounce Rate as:

"Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page" - Google Webmaster Help http://bit.ly/gPPNPj - This makes me think of single page sites, do they have 100% bounce rate?

Heres a look at how Google Analytics performs it calculations. http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77234

What I took from this is that all visitor times are taken and averaged, bounce or not.

Cheers

Aran