Bounce Rate - How Important??

[Jenb]

I have a misc site that I use for reviews of products that are unrelated, a testing grounds of sorts, that I have found pays better than using a Web 2.0 property. I have a high bounce rate on this site, and all the products are unrelated.

So, is bounce rate only viewing one page, only being on a site for a very short amount of time, or both?

I am wondering if ultimately, this will cause my pages not to be displayed as google may see this site as not providing enough value?

[WillR]

Taken straight from Wiki...

"It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and "bounce" (leave the site) rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site.

Bounce rate = total number of visits viewing only one page / total number of visits"

As for only being on your site for a short amount of time, if you use Google Analytics you will see a different figure that tells you the average time a visitors spends on your site. The two figures are separate.

I have no doubt that Google uses both of these figures in some way or another to determine the relevancy of your site to a particular search phrase. It makes sense, if someone searches 'dog biscuits' clicks on a site and is only on there for 3 seconds before hitting the back button, then it means that site was not very relevant for that person. If that happens a lot for a particular search term then Google won't think that site is very relevant.

[Jabapo]

As defined:
Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.

Google can indexed your site whether hi or low bounce rates.

[alamest]

Bonouce rate is really a huge factor now a days because google is changing there ways in search engine and they take this bonuce rate huge factor as well.

So try to put quality content and reduce your bonuce rate as much as you can..

Thanks
Alam

[WillR]

Originally Posted by alamest

Bonouce rate is really a huge factor now a days because google is changing there ways in search engine and they take this bonuce rate huge factor as well.

So try to put quality content and reduce your bonuce rate as much as you can..

Thanks
Alam

Although it is something they will take into account, how much difference it makes is hard to say. There are obviously a lot of websites that are only intended for one-page type visits like news websites, etc or if I am visiting a website just to look at an image, etc.

[Jenb]

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it. I guess I will just keep going with it, as it really is intended for 1 page views and does make money.

I would just like to keep it that way and not be thrown out with a google change, but I guess there is no way to know.

I do only put high quality reviews there, do alot of research, and make them 750+ words, so there is no copy and paste type junk.

[Marketing Cheetah]

I don't think it is a huge factor which is considered by search engines. Bounce rate depends on your website type. How come you can achieve a bounce rate of 40% on a blog? Simply not possible.

[Gadi]

Originally Posted by jugroo

I don't think it is a huge factor which is considered by search engines. Bounce rate depends on your website type. How come you can achieve a bounce rate of 40% on a blog? Simply not possible.

Why is it not possible? We had a very simple blog that had backlinks from pages saying "for more information on xyz click here". Needless to say, the link was good and the content was targeted and high quality, with a simple layout/design and we had 28% bounce rate for a long time.

Bounce rate is a huge factor as it is one of the best indications whether your content is high quality and relevant or not.

[NeilC]

Bounce rate is just one of many factors that can influence your rankings but it's probably more about "fine tuning" unless your bounce rate is seriously bad.

Even 75-80% still doesn't seem to have a drastic effect at the moment although that could change, but I think it also depends a lot on what the purpose of your site is perceived as.

Probably more important as your site gets bigger and then there are factors such as page load speed which become more important as well.

[Marketing Cheetah]

Originally Posted by Gadi

Why is it not possible? We had a very simple blog that had backlinks from pages saying "for more information on xyz click here". Needless to say, the link was good and the content was targeted and high quality, with a simple layout/design and we had 28% bounce rate for a long time.

Bounce rate is a huge factor as it is one of the best indications whether your content is high quality and relevant or not.

I explained my post half way. I forgot to explain the "type of website" part.

Let me explain this with two examples

Example 1:
A wallpaper website receive 100 visitors from search engines who are looking for a specific celebrity wallpapers. Hardly 5 or maybe 6 visitors will leave after downloading one wallpaper of the celebrity they are looking for. So the bounce rate is maybe 15% or less.

Example 2:
A website contains reviews of different laptops. 100 visitors arrive on the website for review of a particular laptop. They read the review and leave the website because maybe 30% of them might get interested in other laptops list you will provide them in the sidebar. Most of them will read the review of the laptop and make the the decision of buy or not to buy.

I don't think so search engines rely on bounce rate. even if they do, there is nothing to worry about. However, it matters a lot when it comes to monetization of your website. Decreasing the bounce rate is very important.

[inter123]

What percentage bounce rate is thought of as acceptable or good?

[daddykool]

Originally Posted by alamest

Bonouce rate is really a huge factor now a days because google is changing there ways in search engine and they take this bonuce rate huge factor as well.

So try to put quality content and reduce your bonuce rate as much as you can..

Thanks
Alam

Spot on!

It is not just the quality on the big G that is being filtered, it is happening all over the web, single page landers with very high quality unique info still work very well regardless, bounce rate is bounce rate, if what you are providing / selling / reselling is not what the visitor was "informed" or "led to believe" they were going to see, they will just go back to the big G or elsewhere

[rising_sun]

Originally Posted by WillR

Bounce rate = total number of visits viewing only one page / total number of visits"

from the formula if you can really satisfy the two condition total number of visits viewing only one page and total number of visits, then you must deserve the high bounce rate.

However, relevancy of the content and site value is another criterion and Google has some rules for this if your site do not satisfy the condition then you could be fired soon or later.

[newmooon]

Originally Posted by rising_sun

from the formula if you can really satisfy the two condition total number of visits viewing only one page and total number of visits, then you must deserve the high bounce rate.

However, relevancy of the content and site value is another criterion and Google has some rules for this if your site do not satisfy the condition then you could be fired soon or later.

Good realization about Google. Are u a member of google.com ?

Ha Ha Ha

Do not take it otherwise, just making joke with u.

[Steven Liew]

If you are running adsense ads on your niche sites, will bounce rate be considered as 100% for this scenario if a user lands on your page and clicks on the google ads?

If so, I don't think it's important. But I could be wrong :P

[Matt D.]

I agree with Cheetah I don't think that bounce rate should be or is relevant for SEO since some websites give everything a visitor wants on it's first page, so after they read your content they still click back or leave the website from the landing page. A much better index of how quality your content is, is the average time per visitor. If an average visitor stays on the website for 5 seconds that means there is not much of an interest for the visitor, but if they stay for 5 minutes then this means your content is interesting/quality in Googles eyes.

And if you are monetizing from the landing page, yes lowering bounce rate is good since that means more people click on your ads or affiliate links and buy something, but if you have a ton of links to your other pages then your lower bounce rate doesn't really mean you will make more money.

That's how I understand it.

[Homer Lasa Hood]

Originally Posted by Jenb

I have a misc site that I use for reviews of products that are unrelated, a testing grounds of sorts, that I have found pays better than using a Web 2.0 property. I have a high bounce rate on this site, and all the products are unrelated.

So, is bounce rate only viewing one page, only being on a site for a very short amount of time, or both?

I am wondering if ultimately, this will cause my pages not to be displayed as google may see this site as not providing enough value?

If you have a high bounce rate, it means that online visitors land on your page then leave in just a matter of seconds. They do not stay longer - meaning they might not be interested nor get what they are looking for on your page. It has a huge factor on your traffic because people will tend to just land on your page without doing anything. It may have a value of course when it comes to Google SERPs.

[John Moore]

No one will know for sure whether google uses bounce rate in their algo, however to play it safe it's always good to aim for a low bounce rate, I try to keep the visitor on the page for longer as google might measure the bounce rate back to the search results in their algo.

[Talen]

Bounce rate is a huge factor as it is one of the best indications whether your content is high quality and relevant or not.

Completely untrue. I have a very large recipe site that is not only high quality and relevant but it also has a high bounce rate because people found exactly what they needed and had no need to look further. The bounce rate is 80%

If Bounce rate was a huge factor then I suspect that I wouldn't have very good rankings and or traffic from big G but in fact it does extremely well.

On the other hand I have a travel authority site that has a bounce rate of under 1%. The average user visits 12 pages before leaving and while the site does very well it doesn't do nearly as well as the recipe site.

Bounce rate is a factor but I believe the content is as well in regards to the bounce rate.