Why Do I Have So Many Zero-Second Visits/Home Page Exits?

Does it feel like there's a revolving door on your home page? Are you noticing an abundance of short visits, zero-second visits or mass exits from your web site's front door? If so, you're in good company—these types of things are a common occurrence on many web sites. We've found that most short visits can be attributed partly to the nature of web analytics data collection and partly to human behavior.

But First Things First
It's important to understand that web analytics data collection only sees each page as it's loaded. This means that a metric like average time on site is calculated by adding up a series of individual events and measuring the overall time. The catch is that the final action of the user (closing the browser window, typing in a new URL or clicking away to another site) isn't recorded by your web server. The browser sends no 'final' request—or at least no request that makes an impression on your log files.

The zero-second visits come about when the visitor only sees one page, and then leaves. Since the visitor didn't take a second action that's recorded by your log files, there isn't a reference point for the measurement...so zero seconds it is. Even if your visitors actually spent 20 seconds scanning over content before reaching for the back button.

Hosted web analytics solutions using JavaScript collect exits from your site when a user clicks on a link to another site, but that only solves part of the problem. Not even JavaScript can tell when a visitor closes the browser window or types in a new URL.

Now that we understand the origin of the zero-second visit, can we figure out why there are so many?

Get Your Technical Ducks in a Row
Before we delve too much further into the world of short visits, we feel that it's worth mentioning a strictly technical issue that may be the cause of some time on site errors: your web analytics software. Short time on page metrics can be a symptom of incorrectly configured analytics software. Most often that happens when the page redirects, or when it contains sub-elements like frames that haven't been excluded. Check your tech specs before looking for other causes.

Oops! Not What I Was Looking For
Assuming you've got your analytics software configured correctly, the main reason for zero second visits is actually quite simple: many users see only one page, most often the home page, especially if they come from PPC campaigns. They click the ad, see the site, read the copy and decide it's not for them, clicking the back button. With no further activity, that's a visit length of zero seconds registered in your log files.

My Web Site, My Home Page
Another reason for a proliferation of zero-second visits relates to the common practice of staff members and employees setting their browser home page to the company web site. Each time they open a new browser, it loads the home page, and no others. Bingo! With every new browser window, you have another clump of zero-second site times. But the solution for this one is easy: Find your company's public IP address and exclude it (or better yet exclude the entire block).

Keep it in Perspective
As we've said before, in web analytics the name of the game is watching trends over time. The raw numbers themselves are not as important as the proportions of the numbers. Even in the case of zero-second visits and home page exits, no matter what their source your data is still proportionately correct. So, don't sweat it... or at least try not to!