What would cause a difference in Date Feeds between visit_start_time_gmt and first_hit_time_gmt?

[Michael_Manooch]

Hi everyone:

Here is a sample of data from a recent data feed file - diff is simply the difference between the two columns. In many cases, there is no difference, but a large percentage of fields has a first_hit_time_gmt  that differs significantly from the visit_start_time_gmt. My question is... why?

visit_start_time_gmt	first_hit_time_gmt	diff
1545321591	1422000083	123321508
1545289861	1422388671	122901190
1545289861	1422388671	122901190
1545289861	1422388671	122901190
1545296187	1429075234	116220953
1545293523	1429075234	116218289
1545314321	1434399052	110915269
1545335333	1435729432	109605901
1545320890	1438160107	107160783
1545309000	1446041181	99267819

[PratheepArunRaj · Accepted solution]

Dear Micheal,

Both are not same and thus the difference:

visit_start_time_gmt : Timestamp (in Unix time) of the first hit of the visit.

first_hit_time_gmt : Timestamp of the very first hit of the visitor in Unix time.

So, visit_start_time_gmt refers to the visit and first_hit_time_gmt refers to the visitor i.e. For New Visitor visit_start_time_gmt will be equal to first_hit_time_gmt but for returning visitors it is not.

Thank You

Arun