Sudden Jump in Bounce Rate?

by ArticleGrinder

Posted: 9 years ago 17 replies

Hi Guys,

I've been going through the stat of my traffic vs bounce rate and noticed that somewhere in mid Jan 2015, I had a huge jump in bounce rate from under 50% to 82%!

Here's the image:

Does anyone know why?

Thank for your help!

#analytics #bounce #bounce rate #jump #rate #sudden #tracking

MikeFriedman

9 years ago

Couple of things to look for.

First, hosting issues. If the site is suddenly loading really slow or not loading properly, bounce rate can skyrocket. In your case, this has been going on for a few months, so unless the host suddenly oversold the server (very possible) or downgraded their hardware (unlikely), that is probably not the problem.

Check your traffic sources. A lot of times increases in bounce rate will also coincide with a new traffic source or sudden spike in traffic from one of your traffic sources. For example, suddenly your site is ranking highly for a couple of keywords that are not really related to your content. That will cause a spike like this.

If nothing was changed on the site, 9 times out of 10 it has something to do with where the traffic is coming from.

Thanks
1 reply

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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your advice! I have been using bluehost. I;ve a couple of questions to what you wrote:

1) How will I know if it's my host?
2) How do I find out "site is ranking highly for a couple of keywords that are not really related to your content"
3) Is this normal? My site is a blog
4) Will this decrease my SEO traffic from Google?
5) How do I tell where the "9 times out of 10 it has something to do with where the traffic is coming from" is from?

Thanks!

Thanks
1 reply

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MikeFriedman

9 years ago

Originally Posted by ArticleGrinder

Hosting, you are not going to be able to check retroactively really. It is something you have to monitor periodically. You can use tools.pingdom.com and Google's speed test to see how fast your site is loading.

As for the other things, dig into your analytics and check your traffic sources. It looks like traffic has been increasing. Where are those increases coming from? Ads, search engine traffic, Facebook, Twitter, direct traffic, etc.

Look into Webmaster Tools for keywords that are bringing in traffic. If you see some keywords bringing in a lot of unrelated traffic, there is your answer.

As for it impacting your traffic from Google, the answer is no. Google does not care about bounce rate, at least not the bounce rate displayed in Analytics.

Thanks
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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

Most of the increase is directly from search engine traffic.

As for keyword, the majority of the traffic (probably 80%), Google puts as (not provided).

How can I tell what keyword specifically I've been getting high traffic from?

I've really been just posting blog posts (once every 2 weeks or so) and not really building backlinks and my traffic just increases. Is this normal?

Thanks
1 reply

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MikeFriedman

9 years ago

It is showing as (not provided) in Webmaster Tools too?

Thanks
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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

It is showing as (not provided) in Webmaster Tools too?

Oh i've never used webmaster tools before. I just accessed it and it seems all the keywords are all relevant to my site.

However I have this message from google "Google detected a significant increase in the number of URLs we could not access. It is likely that your server had an internal error or was busy when attempting to process these requests."

How can I fix this?

Thanks
1 reply

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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

The errors are all "wpcontent/...."

Thanks
1 reply

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yukon

Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by ArticleGrinder

The errors are all "wpcontent/...."

That WP folder (wpcontent) contains the WP theme, which includes every page on your site.

Thanks
1 reply

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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

Originally Posted by yukon

That WP folder (wpcontent) contains the WP theme, which includes every page on your site.

How can i fix it?

Thanks
1 reply

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MikeFriedman

9 years ago

The errors could be a problem.

There is also another possibility. Your site might be converting better.

Depends what you are offering on your site, but if people are finding a page with an ad or affiliate link and clicking on that without going to any other pages, that will count as a bounce, but really it is a good thing.

Thanks
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ArticleGrinder

9 years ago

Originally Posted by MikeFriedman

There errors could be a problem.

There is also another possibility. Your site might be converting better.

Depends what you are offering on your site, but if people are finding a page with an ad or affiliate link and clicking on that without going to any other pages, that will count as a bounce, but really it is a good thing.

Hi Mike,

What do you mean by "There errors could be a problem." and "Your site might be converting better."?

How can I fix those errors?

Btw the errors are all wp-content/plugins/jetpack

Thanks
1 reply

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yukon Banned 9 years ago

Originally Posted by ArticleGrinder

Btw the errors are all wp-content/plugins/jetpack

You didn't say that earlier.

Do you need/use that specific plugin? If not, remove the plugin from your WP Admin.
- Thanks
- 1 reply
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- nettiapina 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by yukon
  
  Do you need/use that specific plugin? If not, remove the plugin from your WP Admin.
  
  Even if you use Jetpack for something I'd check the need for it. It's fairly heavy and bloated.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
  Signature
  Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
  Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.
  
  What's your excuse?
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10024157].message }}
  
  yukon Banned 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by nettiapina
  
  Even if you use Jetpack for something I'd check the need for it. It's fairly heavy and bloated.
  
  Even after reading the WP plugin description page I still don't have any idea what purpose it serves.
  
  Thanks
  
  2 replies
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10024175].message }}
  
  ArticleGrinder 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by yukon
  
  Even after reading the WP plugin description page I still don't have any idea what purpose it serves.
  
  I thought jetpack was supposed to filter spam in comments and thought everyone was using it!
  
  So I'm guessing it's not an important plugin?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  ArticleGrinder 9 years ago
  
  Btw do you guys know if the "Query"(what people type in search) in Google webmaster tool is accurate?
  
  Thanks
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10024806].message }}
  
  nettiapina 9 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by yukon
  
  Even after reading the WP plugin description page I still don't have any idea what purpose it serves.
  
  Jetpack is Automattic's wrapper plugin for everything they make. It's sort of modularized, but unfortunately they've not been very good at making it lightweight. If they've included Akismet it's a recent development, and unfortunately Jetpack is probably the only way to get that. The plugin is popular and has some good stuff which is why it's really shame that it's been problematic.
  
  Automattic (founded by Matt Mullenweg) is the company behind WordPress.com, and has some influence over WordPress' overall direction as a project.
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
  Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.
  
  What's your excuse?
  
  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10024817].message }}

Sudden Jump in Bounce Rate?

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