What Is Bounce Rate?

Date First Published: 29th July 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: SEO

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn more about what bounce rate is in this article.

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that enter a website and leave after viewing a single page without clicking on anything else. It is called bounce rate as they 'bounce' back from the website to the search engine results page or the referral website. A high bounce rate with visitors only spending a few seconds on the page often suggests that it didn't give them what they were looking for or there were other issues. In general, most websites will have a bounce rate of 26% to 70%.

Are Bounces A Bad Sign?

Not all bounces are a bad sign or indicate website issues. Bounces can be a sign that someone has found what they wanted on a page. For example, if someone searched for instructions on how to install a computer program, they landed on an instructions page with everything needed to install the program and closed the page as soon as they successfully installed the computer program, that would still be considered a bounce. But, they got what they were looking for.

Good bounces and bad bounces can be differentiated by looking at the amount of time the visitor spent on that page. If they spent a long time on the page, that is indicative of a good bounce. If they only spent a few seconds, that is a sign that something is wrong.

Note:

Web analytics applications, such as Google Analytics can measure bounce rate. Google Analytics will consider a visit to be a 'bounce' if the visitor only went on one page and left, regardless of how much time they spent on that single page.

What is The Average Bounce Rate?

The bounce rate varies based on the type of website. For example, an ecommerce website is likely to have a lower bounce rate than a dictionary website as people are much more likely to visit other pages, such as the checkout page. On a dictionary website, people often only land there to read one definition that they were looking for and then leave. Below is the average bounce rate for several website categories and referral traffic.

• Ecommerce and retail - 20% - 45%
• Lead generation - 30% - 55%
• Non-ecommerce generation - 35% - 60%
• Landing pages - 60% - 90%
• Dictionaries, blogs, and portals - 65% - 90%

The average bounce rate for websites based on the referral traffic is:

• Email - 35.2%
• Referral - 37.5%
• Organic search - 43.6%
• Paid search - 44.1%
• Direct - 49.9%
• Social - 54%
• Display - 56.5%

How To Calculate Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate can be calculated by this formula:

Bounce rate = Number of visitors who leave after visiting one page ÷ Total number of visitors

For example, if 500 people visited a website and 300 of them navigated away after visiting one page, the calculation would be:

300 ÷ 500 = 0.6

As a percentage, 0.6 is 60%.

Bounce rate = 60%

This means that 60% of site visits resulted in single-page sessions. These visitors may bounce back to the search engine results page or the referral page.

Is Bounce Rate A Search Engine Ranking Factor?

A common misconception is that bounce rate affects the ranking of pages (the order they are listed) in the search results page. Bounce rate is not used as a ranking factor for search engines, such as Google and Bing. Bounce rate is too easy to manipulate and not indicative enough of user experience to be used as a ranking factor. In fact, search engines have no way of measuring the bounce rate of a website from sources other than their search engine, since this would require them to measure the traffic of a website, which they cannot measure unless the website has analytics code in the page that is linked to a service owned by them. Google does not look at Google Analytics bounce rate data to rank pages.

Bounce rate is just a user engagement metric and is one that website owners should take notice of, but it is not used as a ranking factor by search engines. We urge you to be wary of any studies that link bounce rate with search engine rankings.

Difference Between Bounce Rate and Exit Rate

Bounce rate is not to be confused with exit rate. Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that land on a single page and leave. For example, if a visitor landed on Page A and a few seconds later, they went back to the search engine results page, that would be considered a bounce. Exit rate is the percentage of visitors that leave a certain page. For example, if a visitor landed on Page A, clicked on an internal link to Page B, and closed their web browser, that would increase the exit rate of Page B as they left on that page. They did not originally land on Page B, so it is not a bounce. Also, they clicked on something on Page A, so it is not a bounce on Page A either. Exit rate is the percentage of visitors that exit a certain page after visiting any number of pages on the website.

A high bounce rate for one page would be a concern because people are only viewing that single page. However, a high exit rate is not a concern as it only means that the page is often the last one that people visit before exiting the website.

What Causes A High Bounce Rate?

The factors that often cause a high bounce rate are:

• Visitors not finding what they're looking for - If visitors searched on Google for instructions on how to set up a network and the page they landed on contained no instructions in relation to that, it is very likely that they will return to the search results and find another page. This is usually caused by a misleading title tag and description.
• Slow page loading times - If a page takes longer to load than expected, visitors might get fed up with waiting and decide to leave.
• Bad user experience - If the design of a website was inaccessible, unusable, incompatible, or not mobile-friendly, it would discourage users from visiting any other pages.
• Technical issues - If visitors experience a technical issue, such as JavaScript or PHP code not working properly, or a plugin malfunctioning, visitors may bounce off the website.
• Not using custom 404 error pages - Default error 404 pages are often vague, do not explain any information about the error, and do not provide any links back to the main page, forcing users to hit the back button on their browser or leave. These are known as dead-end pages.
• Too many distracting elements, such as popups and flashy animations that irritate users.

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