Google Analytics hiccup?
April 19, 2013 11:58 AM Subscribe
Trying to figure out what gives with a Google Analytics anomaly for the website I manage. In essence, GA reports that the average time mobile users spent on a page increased tenfold in the last month.
Trying to figure out what gives with a Google Analytics anomaly for the website I manage. In essence, GA reports that the average time mobile users spent on a page increased nearly tenfold in the last month.
In February 2013 we had approximately 317,000 visits from users mobile platforms, spending an average of 00:02:25 on each page. Last month, March, we had 311,000 visits, spending and average of 00:20:53 on each page. That's 2.5 minutes in Feb., and almost 21 minutes in March, which seems highly unlikely. All other metrics seem within the realm of normal month-to-month fluctuations, except for overall average time on page, which is out of whack (4 minutes in Feb., 7 mins, 51 secs in March) due to the huge spike in mobile time in page.
I'm no Google Analytics guru, but I know how to run basic reports. I've run basic reports today for each of the last 12 months, and while we've seen gradual growth in mobile visits, last month's spike in mobile time on page is way out of whack.
Any ideas on what could cause this?
Trying to figure out what gives with a Google Analytics anomaly for the website I manage. In essence, GA reports that the average time mobile users spent on a page increased nearly tenfold in the last month.
In February 2013 we had approximately 317,000 visits from users mobile platforms, spending an average of 00:02:25 on each page. Last month, March, we had 311,000 visits, spending and average of 00:20:53 on each page. That's 2.5 minutes in Feb., and almost 21 minutes in March, which seems highly unlikely. All other metrics seem within the realm of normal month-to-month fluctuations, except for overall average time on page, which is out of whack (4 minutes in Feb., 7 mins, 51 secs in March) due to the huge spike in mobile time in page.
I'm no Google Analytics guru, but I know how to run basic reports. I've run basic reports today for each of the last 12 months, and while we've seen gradual growth in mobile visits, last month's spike in mobile time on page is way out of whack.
Any ideas on what could cause this?
Best answer: Sadly, Google Analytics seems to do this once in a blue moon. They fix something, and don't go back to their old data to renormalize it.
posted by Yowser at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013
posted by Yowser at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2013
Check to see if you have the GA script appearing more than once per page.
Make sure you're not including the IP address of any admins. Do you have (perhaps new) staff who are composing their pages right in the browser?
Did you check to see if it was specific pages that showed the increase? Or was it all pages?
posted by Mo Nickels at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2013
Make sure you're not including the IP address of any admins. Do you have (perhaps new) staff who are composing their pages right in the browser?
Did you check to see if it was specific pages that showed the increase? Or was it all pages?
posted by Mo Nickels at 12:23 PM on April 19, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
Could also be they are including more mobile browsers in what they are counting.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:20 PM on April 19, 2013