Glossary
Dwell time
Dwell time is how long someone spends on a post before scrolling on or leaving. LinkedIn and X both use time spent as a signal when ranking feeds.
Dwell time is how long someone spends looking at a post (or at the page behind it) before scrolling on. It needs no tap: a reader who stops for ten seconds to read your post adds dwell time even if they never like it. Platforms can measure it, and both LinkedIn and X have said they use time spent when deciding what to show in the feed. (In search engine optimization the term is also used for the time between clicking a search result and coming back to the results page.)
Example
Two posts each get 20 likes. Readers stop on the first for about two seconds and on the second, a 200-word story with a clear first line, for about twenty. Likes say the posts did equally well; dwell time says the second one held attention.
On LinkedIn
In May 2020, LinkedIn's engineering team explained how it uses dwell time in feed ranking. It measures two kinds: dwell time "on the feed", which starts when at least half of a post is visible as a member scrolls, and dwell time "after the click", the time spent on content after clicking a post. From that data LinkedIn defined "skipped" posts (viewed for less than a set threshold without any click or reaction) and added a model that predicts the chance a member will skip a post to its feed ranking.
On X
When X (then Twitter) published its recommendation code in 2023, the ranking model for the For You timeline listed, among the engagements it predicts, the probability that a user will click into a post's conversation "and stay there for at least 2 minutes". The weights published on April 5, 2023 gave that signal a weight of 10, next to 0.5 for a like and 13.5 for a reply. X notes the weights can change at any time.
Earning time, honestly
- A first line that tells readers why to stop (a hook).
- Content that is worth reading to the end: one idea, with a real example.
- Formats that ask for a few seconds by design, such as a carousel or a thread.
Neither LinkedIn's post analytics nor X's documented post metrics include dwell time (video watch time aside), so treat it as something to design for rather than a number to track.
Sources
- LinkedIn Engineering, Understanding dwell time to improve LinkedIn feed ranking (Siddharth Dangi and others, May 12, 2020).
- X (Twitter), Heavy Ranker README, the-algorithm-ml (weights as of April 5, 2023).
Last reviewed: