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High bounce rate, but high time on site: Should I be concerned?

by Bryce Cleveland
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi, my name is Bryce. My website is based in the automotive niche. I have suffered a high bounce rate since I started my site in 2014. Now in 2016 I am receiving around 700 people daily, but I still suffer from a high bounce rate. Its my understanding that Google uses user signals such as bounce rate and time on site. My average time on site is around 4 minutes, but I have a bounce rate of about 80%. I have tried everything to lower my bounce rate but it just won't go down. Should I be concerned about the bounce rate being that high? Thanks - Bryce
#bounce #concerned #high #rate #site #time
  • Profile picture of the author Tim3
    It's a complicated subject without a one-size fits all answer, proper analytics tracking may help you nail some particular problem down, (if you have one) reading through this may help...

    https://support.google.com/analytics.../1009409?hl=en
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Are you just paranoid?

    Why do you care about bounce rate?

    Traffic hanging out on one page for 4 minutes is eternity for web traffic. Why is traffic on your one page for 4 minutes?
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    • Profile picture of the author Bryce Cleveland
      Originally Posted by yukon View Post

      Are you just paranoid?

      Why do you care about bounce rate?

      Traffic hanging out on one page for 4 minutes is eternity for web traffic. Why is traffic on your one page for 4 minutes?
      Because its a ranking factor. I wonder if time on site is more important than bounce rate as a user experience signal. Traffic is often on my site for long periods on time do to long articles and videos at the end of those articles. Thanks - Bryce
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      • Profile picture of the author yukon
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Bryce Cleveland View Post

        Because its a ranking factor. I wonder if time on site is more important than bounce rate as a user experience signal. Traffic is often on my site for long periods on time do to long articles and videos at the end of those articles. Thanks - Bryce

        My bet is you're using a minuscule rank factor as an excuse why your pages aren't ranking on Google SERPs instead of doing real SEO (plain text + followed authority links).

        This one page site (www.xmasclock.com) has a 100% bounce rate and ranks #1 for keywords with high traffic volume. That shows you how weak bounce rate is for SEO.




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  • Profile picture of the author TheBigBee
    A high bounce rate indicates that folks land on your site and immediately determine that your site doesn't contain what it is they are looking for. Your average time on site is awesome, it means that the people who endeavor to search your site for what they are looking for are fully engaged. A high bounce rate indicates a design problem first and foremost given your average time on site. I'd love to take a peak and offer some precise feedback should you deem it necessary.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tim3
      Originally Posted by TheBigBee View Post

      A high bounce rate indicates that folks land on your site and immediately determine that your site doesn't contain what it is they are looking for.
      That is not necessarily true, because:

      A page may have a one sentence answer that answers the user's query perfectly with exactly what they wanted to know, no more, no less.

      Time on site less than 5 seconds? = Bounce rate very high!
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      • Profile picture of the author TheBigBee
        Originally Posted by Tim3 View Post

        That is not necessarily true, because:

        A page may have a one sentence answer that answers the user's query perfectly with exactly what they wanted to know, no more, no less.

        Time on site less than 5 seconds? = Bounce rate very high!
        I agree to an extent. It's why I would be curious to see the page as I've helped clients solve this precise problem in my small business loan consulting days...
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  • Profile picture of the author Bryce Cleveland
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    • Profile picture of the author TheBigBee
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      • Profile picture of the author Bryce Cleveland
        Attachment 24225

        I found this bit on my analytics. It appears as though most users bounce right away, but the ones who stay, stay for a very long time. I assume that this is either due to loading times, or the introduction to the content. My lowest bounce rate article has a very short intro, maybe I should shorten up the intro on my really popular articles and see how that affects it. Thanks for all the info guys, this is my first time ever using Warrior Forum and so far I really like it!
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