How Ignoring Inactive Time Skews Analytics Data

medium.com

26 points·_kush··6 comments

Interesting post. So how does this help someone make more money off their media/publishing website? What actionable insights can someone draw from inactive time?

You can tell the difference between people who look at your page for 10 seconds after opening it 10 minutes ago, and people who actually look at your page for 10 minutes.

If you aren't fooled into thinking that particular people like your page when they don't, you can better know which demographics your pages appeal to, and which pages attract long stays generally.

You can make more informed decisions about who to advertise to and who isn't interested, which pages to invest time and money in making better, and which are fine already.

But by the author's own admission, aren't people keeping the tab open so that they can come back to it later?

And is someone who consumes your content in 3 minutes more relevant/valuable than someone who is inactive on the page for 1 hour, but still spends 3 or 4 minutes of active time?

3mins vs. 1hr+3mins isn't the distinction. It's 3mins vs. 1hr+10seconds. You're trying to identify the users who weren't engaged at all but seem engaged due to the extra inactive time.

Is there a reason why javascript can't track if the page is on the front or in the back?

It can.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibi...

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