Does Bounce Rate Matter?

11 replies
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Does Google really consider bounce rate into their ranking factors?

I have an Amazon niche review site ... so my goal is to get people on to my site, and click over to Amazon. I consider that a success. But doesn't that count as a "bounce" from Google's perspective?

My bounce rate is around 65%-70% overall, but I track my Amazon uniques as well, and 30% of my visitors click on over to Amazon. So for every 100 visitors, 30 are going over to Amazon, 35-40 are clicking back, and 30-35 are clicking on more than one page.

Is that good?

Should I be worrying about bounce rate, even if that means that they're "bouncing" over on to Amazon, which is exactly what I want anyway?

What do other affiliate site owners do to try to improve their bounce rate?
#bounce #matter #rate
  • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
    Google really does not care about the bounce rate that shows up in Google Analytics. Hell, for most sites they have no way to even track that.

    The type of bounce rate they care about and the type they can track is when someone finds your site in the SERPs, clicks on it, and then right away clicks the back button and clicks on another result in the SERP. That likely means the searcher did not find what they were looking for on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wisden Writers
    Well, 65-70% Bounce Rate is decent for an Affiliate site, Since its an Aff Site, I think you are using some "Call To Action" Links, buttons to send visitor to Amazon, so its good.
    Average bounce rate on my affiliate sites is around same infect bit higher.
    Its not a major factor for Ranking but yes, Higher Bounce rate also means visitors are not actually reading your content so very high bounce rate is surely RED Signal.
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  • Profile picture of the author counzila
    Yes..very very Important:Its show you how long a visitor stay on your site,,like less than 50% is good, once i got 36% according to google..So keep hopes and work on your content . Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author kaurdevinder
    Yes it is very important.it describe that for how much time a visitor stay on your website.less then 50% is beneficial.
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  • Profile picture of the author design2host
    Bounce rates are checked for a reason. if google does not use it now , they will use it soon. Most websites with high bounce rate will soon drop ranking. this is one reason why most affiliate websites rank lower than the parent site , though they have far more links than the main site. The bounce rates on the main site is surely lesser than most affiliate websites. You will see the same trend with directory sites which have high bounce rates too.

    Not yet but soon you will see the difference
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  • Profile picture of the author Lemonchicken
    Bounce rate can be interpreted in many ways and it really depends on your site and other metrics I suppose.

    Avinash Kaushik (you should subscribe to his blog if you haven't as he's a very authoritative figure on bounce rates and all things analytics) but he says anything under 20% is difficult to get, anything over 35% is a cause for concern and 50% is worrying. However take into consideration that if you use your niche website as a landing page - bounce rate will be significantly high as they dip in, read what they need then 'bounce' - same goes for blogs. So I echo what Wisden posted...

    So bounce rate is an important key performance indicator - however it should be used in conjunction with other measures. I would suggest reviewing your website and think how you can make customers 'stick there' and perhaps look at building content, more targeted key words, site speed etc...
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike England
    Google all time, consider Bounce Rate, if the user will stay on your website long time, then Bounce Rate will down, it's mean user come to the right places and Google want show perfect results in top listing.

    Actually, you are getting current Bounce Rate 65-70% and most visitors come from Affiliate site so I don't think you worry about this. If you are getting more and more visits from search engine then you must pay attention over your website so visitors can spend more and more time.
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  • Profile picture of the author tjaysen70
    Bounce rate is a factor that google considers when determining ranking a site. But more importantly, it tells google if anyone went to another page on your site, once they landed there.

    SO for example, if most of the visitors to your site are hitting the "x" in the browser window as soon as they land on your site, um..yeah not a good thing.

    If they land on your site and look at the page for 10 seconds, and don't click on any other page or content on your site, that is bad too, and is part of the bounce rate.

    So the bounce rate helps you also understand what is happening once a visitor lands on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author SureNot
    What is the normal bounce rate for a discussion forum site?
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    • Profile picture of the author flesterking
      Originally Posted by SureNot View Post

      What is the normal bounce rate for a discussion forum site?
      Less than 40% bounce rate is good..
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  • Profile picture of the author InitialEffort
    Bounce rate and time on site is incredibly important relative to your competitors ranking for the same keyword. You'll often notice that Google cycles the results through the day doing split tests to determine the best sites. Good bounce rate for me is typically 20% and time on site is best increased with a video or compelling content.
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