Time Spent ≠ Online Engagement

I just saw the latest Nielsen ratings of the so-called stickiest sites on the web.

Not to beat a dead horse (has it been a year already since the new Nielsen ratings were announced?), but time spent on a website is not the "best engagement metric" that it claims to be. It works better in some industries than in others, but in general, a longer visit is not necessarily a sign of a better visit, of future sales, loyalty, engagement, etc.

What do you take away from the stickiest sites?  Does it provide value to you?  Is a long time on a site good or bad, from the visitors' perspective?

Comments

[Bogus McBogerston]

Stickiness is a silly measure. Different sites call for different usage patterns that don't have much to do with one another.

At first sight these metrics look odd too. When they list the average visit length of google at 1 hour 48 minutes, which google site are they talking about? Certainly not search! Most people spend under 30 seconds doing searches. If a search engine is good, it will *minimize* the amount of time spent.

The other day I spent 2 hours on Verizon's site searching hopelessly for information that wasn't there. It's precisely because their site is horrible that I spent so much time there.

Why is it that this "stickiest sites" list seems identical to the list of sites with the most hits overall?

[Wholesale]

Oh yes, many sites give out valuable info...I find time spent on the Net quite informative and useful

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The sites consumers are visiting on the Web, and average length of visits. Nielsen Online tracked the brands with the highest number of unique visits and time spent on their sites.

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Nielsen Ratings are a system developed by Nielsen Media Research to determine the television audience size viewership. Below are available ratings for each episode of Heroes.

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It's precisely because their site is horrible that I spent so much time there.

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Catherine Lovey exerce le métier de journaliste spécialisée dans les domaines économique et financier.