Browse Time Page

Last updated
Save as PDF

View the default browse time for all users.

Option	Definition
Browse time threshold	The maximum length of time a user is expected to spend viewing a single webpage.
Default browse time	The amount of time recorded in the database when the browse time threshold is exceeded.
Edit	Opens the Edit Browse Time dialog box, where you change the browse time threshold and default browse time.

How Browse Time is Calculated

Browse Time calculation is per user and client IP address.

Do not use it with any query column besides User Name, User IP, Time (Date/Month/Year), and Log Source. It is not an indicator of how much time a person spends on a particular website or per category.

It might be convenient to think of Browse Time as an estimated browsing session length. The length of the session is the difference in time between the first and last request plus one minute. The session starts at the first record for a User and IP address combination in the log data. The session ends when any of the following conditions are met:

After no new records are received within five minutes for the same user and IP address.
When the parser reaches the end of the log file.

The browse time is recorded with only one of the requests in the session. For this reason, many sites have a browse time of 0, and the browse time often appears to be associated with embedded content, such as media servers. So, browse time must not be used along side site name or categories.

Best Practices

Rotate log files every hour so that browse time is written at least once per hour.
If the client has a web application or an open web browser continuously making requests, it is possible for the browse time session to run indefinitely.
In such events, you can also modify your log source to exclude such requests during log parsing or discourage users from using such applications.

Consider adding the User IP column to your query.
If a user is generating traffic from two different IP addresses, it is possible for them to have twice the browse time than what is physically possible. Including their IP address shows you the breakdown per address.

Consider adding the Log Source column to your query.
If your users are load balanced across several Web Gateway servers, they might have several times more browse time than what is physically possible. Including the log source shows you the time per log source.

When using Web Gateway in high availability (HA) mode, it is possible for client requests to be scattered across several appliances. Content Security Reporter can’t merge the session back together and the logs from each appliance would be treated as individual pages. You might then see inflated browse times, above reasonable values. It's best to load-balance in a way that each client PC is uses a single appliance for a fixed time, such as 60 seconds or longer.

Correlating User Browse Time with Websites or Categories

The following report identifies the users who have the most browse time and then list their top sites and hits. Although this report does not show time spent on each site, it does correctly identify who spends the most time generating web traffic and the top sites they are accessing.

Create a New Query and from Chart Type select Bar Chart.
In Bar values, select Sum of > Browse time.
From Bar labels, select Username and sort as needed.
Click Next to move on to Columns.
From the Available Columns, select Username, IP address and Browse Time and Site (Hits if needed).
Save and Run the query.

NOTE: The result is based on User name and Sum of Browse time. To find the browse time per site, drill down on each individual user.