Google analytics average time 00:00 ??

Hi all

When consulting google analytics for my blog, i noticed that it shows 00:00 as average time for many many visits and as a result avery low average time for visits wich is very strange (how can we visit a page for 00:00 seconds ???) so i used at the same time another statisitcs tool (sitemeter) wich gived an average time more higher than google analytics.
Can anyone explain this difference ?

 

it simply means the guy bounced off !!!

 

This may happen in many cases, e. g. if you run PPC campaign at low quality sites where people don't click your ads because they are interested in your website but because the ads are places in positions where people click them by mistake. If this happen, most users immediatelly shut down the window with your website.

The difference in the times showed by 2 different analytics services may be given by the difference of the time needed to count the visit by the server. It is possible that google servers are more overloaded.

 

thx for the answearbut i dont run a PPC compaign.
Even users coming from google search shows sometimes 00:00 as time average

 

When tracking the time of a visit, at minimum 2 pages must be viewed. This allows the program to track the difference in time between the first page view and the second. Unfortunately Google Analytics cannot track the time spent on the page for single page visits. (bounces)

 

aah ok
i see
so let's say that google analytics's average time is not trusted
what do you suggest as a tool for meuring average time ?

 

Technically you could measure time using any tracking tool combined with a special javascript call to send a tracking request when the page is unloaded and there is not a click or other action happening. (Of course you can guess which tool I think is the best