Average Time on site Totals Issue

[MichaelCu5]

I've been looking at the different documentation on how average time on site is calculated however I'm confused by how the Average Time on site Totals is calculated (in screenshot 00:09:16) 

From my understanding If I'm looking at a page name for my dimension, the average time should be calculated by a time stamp of each of the page name and then transformed to what we see (00:01:20,00:01:20,00:00:31..etc).

However, I'm confused how the Average Time on site total is calculated because if I do the calculation on my own it's not 00:09:16 but the average should be about 00:01:19. Why is it so skewed?

Field DescriptionWhat product are you using?What area of the product are you using?What are you trying to achieve?What’s the problem or error?What have you tried so far?Environment / VersionScreenshots / Videos / Logs / Code

[MichaelCu5]

Please disregard the bottom portion "Field Description" this is not apart of my questions

[pradnya_balvir · Accepted solution]

Hi @MichaelCu5 ,

Key Misunderstanding: The total average is not a simple arithmetic average of the row-wise "Average Time on Site" values.

Instead, most analytics platforms (like Adobe Analytics or GA) calculate overall average time using a weighted average based on total time and visit count — not by averaging the row averages

How the Total Average is Actually Calculated

The formula is:

Total Time Spent on All Pages ÷ Total Number of Visits

If we take a few sample rows and apply that logic:

Page	Avg Time	Visits
A	00:01:20 (80s)	6,003
B	00:01:20 (80s)	3,537
C	00:00:31 (31s)	673
D	00:01:50 (110s)	161
...	...	...

Total time = (80×6003) + (80×3537) + (31×673) + (110×161) + …

Then:

Total Time / Total Visits (10,585) = Average time (in seconds)

If you do the math correctly, you should get a number close to 00:09:16 if one or more lower-visit pages (e.g., 42 visits with 00:02:39) are significantly pulling the total upward due to longer duration

To truly verify the total:

1. Multiply each page’s avg time (in seconds) by its visits.
2. Add those up.
3. Divide by total visits (10,585).

That will give you the correct total average time, and it may be much closer to 00:09:16 than the simple row average of ~00:01:19

Thanks.

[gautham_madala]

The “Average Time on Site (Total)” value (e.g., 00:09:16) is not the average of the visible line item values. Instead, Adobe calculates this value by dividing the total time spent (sum of time between hits across visits) by the number of visits where time could be calculated — i.e., excluding bounces and final hits where no next timestamp exists.

That’s why your manual average gives you ~00:01:19 but Adobe reports ~00:09:16 — because the total is not just a straight average of row-level times.

Detailed answer: 
Adobe Analytics does not measure time on a page using actual timestamps or session duration alone. Instead, it infers time spent using a method called “time-on-page” deltas, based on the time between consecutive hits.

For each page view:
Time spent on page =
timestamp of next hit (next page view or link click)
− timestamp of current hit

But here’s the catch:

The last hit of a visit has no next hit, so no time is recorded.

Single-page visits (bounces) also record 0 seconds.