How long do they stay?

google analytics

google analytics

naw, had a long, discussion with a google analytics rep who was trying to convince me that the tool is accurate...
I timed how long my friends stayed on the site as well as myself and the results were way off.

I know that it's probably a noob question (how do you time it if the browser sends no packets back and forth), and i'm not even sure if it's possible...

G claims it is .......but i think otherwise..at least not accurately.

(how do you time it if the browser sends no packets back and forth), and i'm not even sure if it's possible...

And there you go. I visit a site and the phone rings. I'm on the phone for an hour (pesky customers anyway. :-) ) I come back to the computer and forget what I was even doing, so I close the window/tab without navigating OR . . . . . I click one more link . . . .

If I click a link, the tracking software records I've been on the site an hour. Which I haven't. If I close the tab, you get nothing.

Add to this, multi-tab browsing is very popular these days. When I'm researching a technical issue, I often open up 6 or 8 possible solutions and sometimes find one that keeps me reading for a half hour or so. So it may **seem** like I've been on your site a half hour, but I'm in another tab. :-)

Tracking software is always going to be fraught with these kinds of problems. A test like you mentioned will never stand up to tracking figures.

Tracking software is always going to be fraught with these kinds of problems.

I agree. You're better off tracking trends over time rather than worrying about the actual accuracy of each piece of data. I think that GA is as good as many other analytics packages out there - and it's free.

Add to this, multi-tab browsing is very popular these days. When I'm researching a technical issue, I often open up 6 or 8 possible solutions and sometimes find one that keeps me reading for a half hour or so. So it may **seem** like I've been on your site a half hour, but I'm in another tab. :-)

Didn't think of that, thanx!

Think i'll switch to trend tracking instead.

Thank you for the posts

You can't measure the actual time a user spends on your site. All you can measure is the time between user requests of webpages.