I am wondering if there are optimal settings to track visit duration.
Here I read that I could set the default_time_one_page_visit but what value could be suitable?
Also I read here that there is a more precise way to track the time spent on the pages (the exit page in particular). Why this way is not the default one? In other words, what would be the advantages in not using the heart beat timer?
Thanks for your answers.
Hi @Marco_Sciamanna,
My understanding is that default_time_one_page_visit is used in case the time duration of a page is 0.
Then when the page is not the last visited or if the heat beat timer is used (eg. for some old browser it is not possible, nether in case of server-side tracking), this value should not be used by Matomo.
Ok, I can’t have both 
.
I’m not sure which one I could have (because other teams of my company are responsible for the (1) configuration change and (2) development), so I was wondering:
default_time_one_page_visit, what would be a suitable value?default_time_one_page_visit and alternatively enabling the heartbeattimer, what would be the advantage in NOT choosing the heartbeattimer? I’m asking that because in the documentation it seems that the heartbeattimer provides a more accurate way to measure the time spent in the visit. Why on earth someone should be interested in NOT having sucu more accurate way?Not really
It depends on the average time you think most users spend on last pages… In my opinion, 0 is the best value, as you can consider heartbeattimer can be enabled on most pages, and some time, users can really spend 0 second on a page…
There is no advantage of not using heartbeattimer, but if you consider most users have a deprecated browser, the heartbeat won’t work… Also if you don’t want to measure the time spent on each page, you don’t need to activate it either (as it consumes a very little bit of network bandwidth).
Are there some specific browser requirements for the heartbeattimer? Or they are the same requirements for the JavaScript tracker (here)?