Understanding the read rate

Read rate is the percentage of visitors that have stayed on the page long enough to have read all of the contents. In this article you'll learn how we calculate it.

As part of the Insights to help you better understand user engagement and behaviour in ahead, we have introduced the estimated read time and the read rate.

What is the estimated read time?

The estimated read time is calculated according to the word count on a page. We calculate a 230 word count per minute, which means that if, for example, your news has 460 words, it will have an estimated read time of two minutes. 

The estimated read time is stored by the second, but always displayed rounded up to the nearest minute.

For Chinese and Japanese, individual characters are counted and the assumed reading speed is adjusted accordingly. Here then, we calculate a character count per minute of 560.

What is the read rate?

The read rate is the percentage of visitors that have stayed on the page long enough to have read all of its contents. 

We differentiate between three types of reader behaviour:

• Glanced: when a user spends less than 5 seconds on a page, it will count as glanced.
• Skimmed: when a user spends more than 5 seconds but less than half of the estimated read time on a page, it counts as skimmed.
• Read: when a user spends more than half of the estimated read time on a page, it will be counted as read.

After publication, read rates are tracked for one month.

Where can I find the read rate?

You'll find the read rate in the News Insights section: click on your name in the top right corner and then on 'Insights' and go to the News tab.

The table of  news published during the chosen time period will only show you the read rate. If you'd like to see the glanced and skimmed rates, download the Excel report.

Additionally, as an editor you can see the coverage and reader behaviour including read, skimmed and glanced rates on the right side of the news in question.