Average time on page VS Average time spent in Google Analytics

Question

I have been reading analytics on my site over the past two days.

On the Audience → Overview screen, the average visit time is 00:00:19.

On the Behavior → Overview screen, the average time is indicated on the page 00:02:04

Looking at individual pages of content, it seems that the second average is true, so I wonder what the average duration of a visit means. For me, both of these indicators sound the same.

Answer 1

The definitions of these metrics depend largely on how Google Analytics measures how long a user stays on a page or site. Unfortunately, GA cannot accurately measure them. This article can help you understand how these indicators are measured and what they represent (and what are the pitfalls). Ultimately, there is no correlation between the two metrics.

Here are the highlights:

• Do not stop over time on a page or time on a site. Unfortunately, the indicators are erroneous and may distort your analysis. Observe limitations when analyzing site performance.
• The time on the page does not include exits (or bounces) and may not accurately report the actual time on the page. It can be significantly lower or much higher than reported.
• Site time includes bounces, but still cannot determine the actual length of time spent on exit pages. Therefore, this number can also be disabled.