Sudden Spike in Bounce Rate - Help me find the cause and solution...

by davidtong

Posted: 13 years ago 17 replies

INTERNET MARKETING

Hi folks,

For some strange reason, my site had a dramatic spike in bounce rate starting on July 14th.

My site averages a 5-9% bounce rate the past 2 years or so then suddenly it jumped to 60%+ on 7/14 then now it's up to 75%! (I didn't embed the photos as they're quite large so you can see the text, files hosted on photobucket, so they're clean).

BOUNCE RATE SPIKE

Pageviews dropped as well.

PAGEVIEWS DROP

I didn't do anything to the site other than edited some older posts and fixed some text for SEO... I didn't add any new plug-ins other than Growmap Anti-spambot commenting plugin on the past month.

I also found a lot (close to 200) of referring sites with 1-5 visits with 100% bounce rate that are clearly spambots. However, these sites were present even before July 14th.

SPAMBOTS?

What I also find weird is the bounce rate of my "usual" referrers such as organic search, smashing magazine referral, facebook/stumbleupon/forum referrals spiked as well.

This is the June 1-30 table. You can see that the average bounce rate is under 6%

JUNE BOUNCE RATE

Here's July 1-13th. Still below 5% overall.

JULY 1-13 BOUNCE RATE

Now July 14th onwards.

JULY 14 TO 21

60-75% bounce rate overnight... I don't know how to fix this

I'd appreciate it if anyone can help me out. Thanks a lot.

#bounce #find #rate #solution #spike #sudden

SuzanneH 13 years ago

The answer's probably "yes", but I thought I would ask, just in case: did you make sure that the analytics code is still on all your pages?

Suzanne
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SuzanneH 13 years ago

Also, on GA's help page here: Why is my Bounce Rate so high? - Analytics Help there's a link to a free scan tool that will make sure the code is implemented properly: SiteScan™ By EpikOne - A Google Analytics Help, Setup, and Configuration Tool

Suzanne
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davidtong 13 years ago

I'll study your links and get back to you Suzanne, thanks.
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davidtong 13 years ago

Hi Suzanne.

The tool only allows checking of the first 100 pages, my site has over 900 pages it claims. Not sure how they derived that number coz I only have 400+ posts and pages combined I think.

Right now, I'm still waiting for the email result report. I'll chime back when I receive it. Thanks again.
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davidtong

13 years ago

Just an update to those who may have the same problem.

Suzanne's lead was spot on. I removed my Google Analyticator plug-in, turned off the Cloudflare Google Analyticator option, then reinstalled the plug-in and my bounce rate went back to <3% the past 2 days.

Thanks.

Thanks
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damoncloudflare

13 years ago

Originally Posted by davidtong

Did you have the Google Analytics' code in twice? I could see this causing some issues with accurately reading bounce rates.

Thanks

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davidtong 13 years ago

Well, I think 2 (or more) plug-ins were fetching the code simultaneously. I only left Google Analyticator (WP plugin) and Cloudflare on right now...

I'm wondering about the opposite right now... It doesn't seem plausible to get 1% bounce rate (or lower) on a daily basis for my site LOL... So confused.
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SuzanneH 13 years ago

It could very well be that the 60 to 75% bounce rate is a true one and the 9% an anomaly, because that IS really low, IMHO. I just assumed you had extremely targeted visitors/pages.

Here's a link to a benchmark study from Google Analytics from July 2011: Google Analytics Benchmark July 2011: how do you compare to the average?

You'll see bounce rates anywhere from 42% and up. My own site averages at around 58% (some pages have really low bounce rates, some very high -- but for affiliate sales pages, I want a high bounce rate if it means they're going to the vendor site).

Suzanne
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- davidtong 13 years ago
  
  My site is a photography blog, not selling anything (see my sig, if you have the time). I'd expect my bounce rate (logic-wise) to be around 70%... <10% seems rather odd but I never really cared until I saw the spike. Now it's at a very ridiculous low% level... Grrr...
  
  I just back-tracked on my analytics, it turns out that something happened around Sept 2010 and Oct 2010, my consistent 70% bounce rate dropped to 29, then in November, 2%, then it stayed there until the spike last month.
  
  Argh, this is confusing and infuriating.
  
  Thanks
  
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davidtong 13 years ago
goodness, here's what happened.

I just loaded my main page, then VIEW SOURCE... After that, I just CTRL-F (find/search) the letters "UA-", I found THREE instances of the tracker... I should only have one right?

First instance (2nd line of the page source code)
Code:

//<![CDATA[ window.__CF=window.__CF||{};window.__CF.AJS={"ga_key":{"ua":"UA-5xxxxxx-2","ga_bs":"0"},"cdnjs":{"__h":"1","cdnjs":"MO,GF,FX,CS,JS" } }; //]]>
2nd Instance:
Code:

<script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5xxxxxx-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
Third instance:
Code:

<script type="text/javascript">window.google_analytics_uacct = "ca-pub-2612863895935092";</script> <script type="text/javascript"> var analyticsFileTypes = ['']; var analyticsEventTracking = 'enabled'; </script> <script type="text/javascript"> var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-5xxxxxx-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); </script>
Now I have to figure out which plug-in stuck which code grrr. But for simplicity's sake, I turned off the ff: right now:

1) Google Analyticator Plugin
2) Removed the UA code in AIO Webmaster Settings Page
3) Turned off Analyticator setting in Cloudflare dashboard.
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- damoncloudflare 13 years ago
  
  Yes, you should only have one in there (having the code in there multiple times will screw things up). The CloudFlare apps' integration is generally smart enough to make sure it isn't in there more than once.
  
  You should probably remove any other Google Analytics plugins you have and/or any code you have inserted manually (leave the CloudFlare one in there).
  
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aryangarg 13 years ago

may be because of change in search engine ranking.
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davidtong

13 years ago

Noted Damon, I've removed all three right now and give it a couple of days so I have a "0-stat" point to track.

I'll take your advice of using CF instead of the plug-ins.

Thanks
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damoncloudflare

13 years ago

Originally Posted by davidtong

Noted Damon, I've removed all three right now and give it a couple of days so I have a "0-stat" point to track.

I'll take your advice of using CF instead of the plug-ins.

Glad to help.

Thanks

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davidtong 13 years ago

Update, I'm OK now, I removed all but one Analytic code and I'm back on track and more logical range of 60%-ish.
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- damoncloudflare 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by davidtong
  
  Update, I'm OK now, I removed all but one Analytic code and I'm back on track and more logical range of 60%-ish.
  
  Glad to hear things are stabilizing.
  
  Thanks
  
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davidtong 13 years ago

Much thanks to everyone
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Sudden Spike in Bounce Rate - Help me find the cause and solution...

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