How long does a visitor stay on a web site in general.  I am trying to
find current information on the length of a visit so I can share with
people what their web site needs to overcome.  Does the average user
spend less than 10 seconds?  What about the amount of time that
indicates that a web site has been successful in attracting a
qualified prospect.  I am looking for supporting documentation and the
research should be no older than a couple of years at most.  My
primary goal is to have research I can point to that says, on
successful web sites, people spend at a minimum X amount of time. In
general people spend less than X seconds on a web site.

<The most up to date survey that I could find is from 2004. This
survey of 160 million visitors, carried out in the first quarter of
2004,  found that visitors spent 29.44 seconds per page and visited
11.43 pages. This works out at an average of 5.6 minutes per site. The
length of time per page has dropped since the second quarter of 2003
when it was 32.47 seconds and when 9.84 pages were viewed.  It was
also found that 21% of visitors view the home page of a site and
leave.
(Source: DoubleClick.).
http://www.doubleclick.com/us/knowledge_central/documents/trend_reports/dc_q104ecommercetrends_0406.pdf?c=0406_smr&id_lead=newsletter&id_source=newsletter_0406

In August 2003, the average internet user spent less than 55 seconds
per domain visited. (Source: Nielsen/Netratings.)
http://www.digitaldeliverance.com/MT/archives/000201.html

Most online viewers spend less than 60 seconds at an online site. Web
viewers have an attention span of 9 seconds. (Source: Turning into
digital goldfish. February 22, 2002. BBC News.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1834682.stm

Nielsen/NetRating found that online games have the stickiest websites.
In May 2004, Slingo was the stickiest site with visitors spending an
average of four hours and eight minutes on the site.
http://www.writenews.com/2004/061804_game_sites_sticky.htm

Itfacts.biz lists the stickiest brands in 2003 with the time spent.
http://www.itfacts.biz/index.php?id=P118>


<Search strategy:>

<online spend average "per site">
<://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-31,GGLD:en&q=online+spend+average+%22per+site%22>

<"online habits" spend average>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22online+habits%22+spend+average&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-31,GGLD:en&start=10&sa=N>

<"time spent" website seconds>
<://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+spent%22+website+seconds&hl=en&lr=&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-31,GGLD:en&start=10&sa=N>

<Hope this helps.>

Google for:
"site statistics" average visit length

This will give you a list of some 5000 statistic pages for as many web
sites. As the answer to your question varies very depending on the
kind of site, you should try and find one or more similar sites to the
one you're working with.

You will not find statistics for a site i'm working with,
http://www.shoplagom.com - a shareware site, but I can tell you that
we currently hold on to our visitors for about 3.50 min. I can also
tell you that this is increasing steadily as the site improves and
expands.