Average Visit Duration

Average visit duration is the average amount of time a user spends on a website during a session and is a key indicator of engagement.

Calculation of visit duration

Average visit duration is calculated as the time elapsed between a user's first and last action on a website during a visit.

For example, if a visitor accesses a site's homepage, navigates to a category, then a product page, and finally exits the website, the full duration of the visit is calculated from the time the visitor landed on the homepage to the time that they leave the website.

Note: A visit expires after 30 minutes of inactivity. For more information on how Similarweb calculates visits, see Total Visits.

How to use this metric

The average visit duration of a website can be a strong indication of the quality of engagement with your site. For most websites, the longer the visit duration, the better.

By analyzing visit duration, you can:

  • evaluate how likely users are to navigate, engage and complete the website goal (page views, purchases, etc.)

  • understand visitor interests, evaluate site traffic month over month, and benchmark performance

  • understand fluctuations and trends in engagement with your website

Where can you find this metric?

Average Visit Duration metric is located through the Competitive Research tools and Market Analysis modules. Check it out!

FAQs

Q: Does average visit duration include bounced visits?

A: If a user visits a website but does not interact with the site, this is referred to as a bounced visit, and the average visit duration is recorded as 0. Bounced visits are included in the calculation of average visit duration for a website.

Q: What time format is average visit duration presented in?

A: Average visit duration is presented in the format HH:MM:SS.

Q: If a user is active on a site for 6 minutes, and then they become inactive but leave the website open on their device for an additional 30 minutes, what would be the duration of this visit?

A: Because visit duration is measured by the elapsed time from the first and last action a user completed on a site, the duration of this visit would be 6 minutes. After the 30 minutes of inactivity, the visit expires.

Was this article helpful?
46 out of 86 found this helpful