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Re:Visitor Time on Page calculation by Google Analytics does... by XCSme on Thursday March 03, 2022 @11:37AM (#30543206)
I think in general all website metrics are just an approximation. Even "real" sign-ups are sometimes incorrect as some users might sign-up multiple times, bots might sign-up. Maybe conversions/purchases and money earned are the only hard metric, but that also has to take into account refunds, chargebacks (fake card used).

That being said, most of the time those approximations are good enough to suggest actionable steps.

Re:Visitor Time on Page calculation by Google Analytics does... by XCSme on Thursday March 03, 2022 @11:41AM (#30543269)
Regarding this specific post, the user might have his browser tab open but go eat lunch and then come back, in which case the "time on page" is still not showing the time the user actually spent on your website. A more accurate metric would be to check for user activity, but then again, the user might be inactive for 1 hour yet somehow actively reading the page content.