Google Analytics Question

[adammck]

Hi Warriors,

I've read a fair bit up on using the program but I'm confused with a simple little thing. My site pushes people to other websites (i.e affiliates), so the visitor may land on the page via search engines and then click on a link which essentially pushes them out of the page. Would that be considered a bounce? Or It isn't because the visitor engaged with the website? I just want to make sure I am understanding the information correctly.

Cheers,

Adam

[Local Trifecta]

Hi Adam,

It would essentially be considered a bounce (exit page). Although for your business a high bounce rate isnt a bad thing ... just something to monitor.

Cheers,

DGS

[MartinK8]

Yes, it would be a bounce, unless the visitor view other pages on your website.
In other words, bounce occurs when a visitor only views a single page on a website, meaning the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified timeout (specified by google) occurs.
And bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site..
Hope that clears it up for you.

Martin

[adammck]

Thanks guys.

I had that impression due to the way the cookies worked, but I just wanted to confirm so I was understanding the information correctly inside Analytics.

[RPG]

It doesn't have to count as a bounce. You can use event tracking to count clicking the link as an interaction. Look up _trackEvent in the Google Dev documents. Just be sure to set the noninteraction variable to False because the default is True which means it won't count the click as an interaction for the purpose of determining a bounce.

_trackEvent(category, action, opt_label, opt_value, opt_noninteraction)

Good luck

[Jay McLaren]

Originally Posted by adammck

I had that impression due to the way the cookies worked

Try to stay away from the mechanics of the situation. Google can track a user without cookies.

When it comes to your site the bounce rate may play a different role than the bounce rate for another site. Generally most people freak out about high bounce rate but it's different for you.

If your site is an information portal that people continuously come back to... then the bookmark rate/return visitor rate will be more important for you than the bounce rate.

You can have an obscene bounce rate... but if you're bookmark and return visitor rate are high in Google can easily determine that you are an information portal ( which you have said you are ).

This means that you can maintain your SE rankings even with a high bounce rate because people still come back to your site even if only to bounce again.