Why “Time on Page” Data Is Not Available in Siteimprove Analytics

Summary

“Time on page” data is not shown in Siteimprove Analytics because it is generally unreliable and cannot be accurately calculated in all cases. Instead, Siteimprove provides the more reliable Visit length metric as an alternative for measuring user engagement.

Issue

You may have noticed that "Time on page" or "Time spent on page" (meaning one specific page) data is not displayed within the Siteimprove Analytics module.

Cause(s)

Siteimprove does not show this data as it is generally unreliable.

Furthermore, the "Time spent on page" data would be incomplete in cases where a visitor only visits one page on your website and then leaves the website again (bounces).

Explanation

Let’s take an example:

A visitor comes to your website and opens a page in a new tab. The visitor leaves the tab open for 30 minutes. Apart from the visitor that keeps his tab open for 30 minutes, all other visitors to the page stay on the page for only five seconds.

The above scenario would influence any data collected for "Time spent on page" and give an incorrect impression of how long visitors were on the individual page.

In order to see the visitors time on a page, Siteimprove would technically need to know when the visitor clicks on the page and then clicks on another link on the same website.

Resolution / Alternative

Because the data regarding "Time spent on page" is unreliable, Siteimprove has opted to show the more reliable metric Visit length * (the time spent on a website).

Visit length can be found under the Behavior menu. 
Length relates to the time (in minutes) for each visit. 
This data can be used to determine how your website retains a visitor.
If the visit length is typically low, you could investigate ways to keep your visitors on your site for longer.

Why does Visit Length show "UNKNOWN (Only 1 page view)"?

In the Visit Length report, you may see a category labeled "UNKNOWN (Only 1 page view)".

This label represents visits where a visitor viewed only a single page before leaving the website. These visits are also commonly referred to as bounced visits.

Siteimprove calculates Visit length using the timestamps of page view events within a visit. To determine the length of a visit, at least two page views are required so that a time difference can be measured.

When a visit contains only one page view, there is no subsequent page view timestamp available. Because Siteimprove cannot calculate the duration of that visit, it is categorized as "UNKNOWN (Only 1 page view)" in the Visit Length report.