Products
Webtrends Analytics 9.x
Webtrends Analytics 8.x
Issue
How does Webtrends calculate the amount of time spent on a Web site?
Resolution
A default setting for the visit timeout is thirty minutes. This timeout setting is used to determine when to stop tracking a given visitor session (also referred to as a visit in the reporting). As no activity is logged when a visitor turns off his or her browser, it is impossible to tell when he or she stopped viewing a page based on the log file. Because of this, Webtrends has had to set a point where, if no further activity is found in the log file, it is assumed that the session has discontinued.
Here are two case studies:
| Visitor A | Visitor B | |
| Hits | 9:00 | Site A 9:01:00 |
| 9:01 | Site A 9:02:00 | |
| 9:31:05 | Site B 9:03:00 | |
| 9:32:04 | Site B 9:27:00 | |
| Site A 9:28:00 | ||
| Total Visit Time | 1:59 | Site A 27:00:00 |
| Site B 24:00:00 |
Visitor A visits one site at 9, 9:01. The visit ends dues to exceeding the 30 minute session timeout. A second visit is initiated containing two hits 59 seconds apart. Therefore total time on site is set to 1:59.
Visitor B visits two sites with overlapping hits. As the timeout is never exceeded time on site is continuous for each site. This leads to a time count for both sites. Additionally single page visits are excluded from the calculations.