Time on page less than 10 seconds

This means that the URL in question received organic search traffic, but the average time on page was 10 seconds or less - with data taken from the connected Google Analytics account.

Why is this important?

Time on page is an engagement metric, so if visitors spend only a short amount of time on a page, they are considered to be less engaged by the content.

If a page has an average time on page of 10 seconds or less, this could be an indication that the page is low quality, or the content does not provide a satisfactory answer to ranking search queries.

What does the Hint check?

This Hint will trigger for any internal URL which recorded some traffic from organic search (i.e. > 0) yet had average time on page of 10 seconds or less.

This data was collected from Google Analytics, via API, for the connected Account/View, and for the specified date range.

Why is this Hint marked 'Potential Issue'?

This Hint is a 'Potential Issue', which means that it is unlikely to be affecting the site at the moment, but should be investigated as it could cause issues in the future.

Sometimes, content can be deliberately short - such as a short answer to a specific question - and still offer users a good experience. Also, this Hint may trigger for URLs that have very few visitors, and as such the sample size is so small you do not wish to take action on it.

However, this Hint will also help you pick out pages that do a poor job of engaging visitors.