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HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

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Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#21

Post by MasterScrat »

lenazegher wrote: post #8

These data are not being interpreted correctly. Analytics calculates time-on-page based on the time between loads of the google JS embedded in your pages. Any visitor who 'bounces' - that is, only visits a single page - only loads the JS once, so their time-on-page is recorded as 0 seconds, regardless of how long they actually spent on the page.

> Analytics calculates time-on-page based on the time between loads of the google JS embedded in your pages.

Source?

They may be using JavaScript to track that more accurately.

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#22

Post by rickdale »

lenazegher wrote: post #8

These data are not being interpreted correctly. Analytics calculates time-on-page based on the time between loads of the google JS embedded in your pages. Any visitor who 'bounces' - that is, only visits a single page - only loads the JS once, so their time-on-page is recorded as 0 seconds, regardless of how long they actually spent on the page.

Are you absolutely sure this is how it works? I have a 1 page website where the average time is 1:36, shouldn't it stay at 0 since the users are not clicking to other pageS?

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#25

Post by happyshadows »

plam wrote: post #9
happyshadows wrote: post #7

Analytics calculates the time on page by the time difference _between_ page hits. One hit: 0 seconds on site. Because of this, it isn't an accurate metric to measure engagement for a single blog post.

I assumed they have some fancy javascript thing to take care of that? what would you suggest to use to estimate actually readership?

I would stick with GA and just trigger an event via javascript once the body of text is scrolled through.

If I didn't know how to do that, I would probably use a scrollmap tool like CrazyEgg.

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#26

Post by gabipurcaru »

rickdale wrote: post #22
lenazegher wrote: post #8

These data are not being interpreted correctly. Analytics calculates time-on-page based on the time between loads of the google JS embedded in your pages. Any visitor who 'bounces' - that is, only visits a single page - only loads the JS once, so their time-on-page is recorded as 0 seconds, regardless of how long they actually spent on the page.

Are you absolutely sure this is how it works? I have a 1 page website where the average time is 1:36, shouldn't it stay at 0 since the users are not clicking to other pageS?

My guess is that a small percentage of users refresh the page after a while (if the traffic is small, maybe you're weighing in on that yourself)

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#27

Post by johnpowell »

dasil003 wrote: post #19
johnpowell wrote: post #14

Interesting. I posted a link to my shithole of a site in a comment a hundred deep in a post that had reached the top of the frontpage and had fallen to pretty much the bottom when I posted in the thread. I got a extra 300 visitors that day and about 50 the next. The average visitors per day is around 25 so this is a big and noticeable spike. I guess I am kinda shocked a random link in the middle of a dying thread gen…

You should put your site in your profile so you can see how many people come after you post an offhand reference to the fact that you may have once written something interesting elsewhere.

Well I thought it was interesting that my shitty comment that linked to something I wrote got so many hits while getting on the frontpage got so little in comparison.

I could get your angst if I had linked to it again or actually linked to it in my profile. But I did neither. So now I just think you are a dick.

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#29

Post by jfoster »

gabipurcaru wrote: post #26
rickdale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you absolutely sure this is how it works? I have a 1 page website where the average time is 1:36, shouldn't it stay at 0 since the users are not clicking to other pageS?

My guess is that a small percentage of users refresh the page after a while (if the traffic is small, maybe you're weighing in on that yourself)

But does anyone actually know? I can see from this thread that plenty of people thought they knew, but it seems nearly half thought it worked one way, and nearly half thought it worked the other way.

Re: HN front page, 16000 visitors in a day, how many actually read the article?

#30

Post by thauck »

Like has been mentioned by many, this is incorrect interpretation... and quite common to see on blogs or single page sites. Although technically it's not dependent pageviews, but interactions (so pageviews or events).

So, one common way to handle this on blogs is to use setTimeout in conjunction with an event. Basically you fire an event after 15 or so sections which will then count as an interaction.

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