The importance of Bounce Rate

11 years ago

Originally Posted by alex93

How important is bounce rate in your opinion.

I am curious as to how you see and value bounce rate, how important is it, would Google place more emphasis on sites that constantly deliver low bounce rate.

Curious to see how it factors and to what degree.

I think there is no question that it is a factor... to the degree I think that would be hard to tell. I have of late took on this theory that bounce rate could be a determining factor in determining "Quality" over all. Bounce rate and time on page together seem to be pretty good indicators I would think of such a concept.

With google constantly throwing around the term "quality content" you have to more than imagine there is a defined mathematic definition to that term. Its not like they have hired a bunch of English majors to patrol the web and grade content like a college mid term. If they did, 99% of the web would be sandboxed LOL

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alex93

11 years ago

Originally Posted by savidge4

I have of late took on this theory that bounce rate could be a determining factor in determining "Quality" over all. Bounce rate and time on page together seem to be pretty good indicators I would think of such a concept.

I totally agree, see for some time now iv been checking pages with high bounce rates and those which have bounce rates around 13%, it seems that most of my high bounce rate pages continue to drop, whereas this is not the case for pages with little to no bounce rate on them.

The other interesting thing, most pages on my site which have reviews have 6000-8000 views, pages with little to no content average around 200 views, which is a considerable difference, granted the keyword is different, but even so, on a whole it seems to be drastically different in numbers.

Granted other factors are important but I would say bounce rate must be a high up metric which must to a degree play some role, otherwise why list it in Google Analytics. Iv grouped content with bounce rate as I think they go together hand in hand.

Curious to see how others see this, thanks for the reply, could be an interesting thread.

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MikeFriedman 11 years ago

I really do not think that the bounce rate reported in Google Analytics is a ranking factor.

There are two reasons I believe this.

First, I have seen sites with bounce rates in excess of 80% ranking just fine.

Second, very few websites use Google Analytics. There was an earning report in 2012 in which Google reported that over 10 million websites were using GA. I have not seen an updated number since, but even if that doubled in the past 2+ years, 20 million websites in the grand scheme of the internet is a drop in the bucket.

Now you can add in a few other ways that Google might be able to track it such as people using Chrome or browsing while logged into a Google account, but that would seem to be an inaccurate and biased way of tracking that sort of data for a website because you are not getting the data for all users. Just Google users who visit the site.

They just do not have bounce rate data on enough websites to make it a factor in rankings.

Now what I do think they track is a different sort of bounce rate. That is how many people click on a search result, immediately click the back button because they did not find what they were looking for, and then click on another search result in the same SERP. That they could easily track, and it would make sense for them to take it into account.
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- alex93 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by MikeFriedman
  
  I really do not think that the bounce rate reported in Google Analytics is a ranking factor. .
  
  So would you say bounce rate reported as a metric in webmasters and not something that can be taken as gospel, a guild line or no importance at all?
  
  Trying to fathom whether it is useful as one metric of many, a factor if you will, I suppose my overall goal is to find a blueprint, something which if followed creates a constant level of consistency traffic wise with no real problems of a negative impact.
  
  I suppose my real question i would like answered is, what is the forfront of SEO., what is the key aspects which you all adopt, would be great to discuss this, most often it is broad, and in some cases obsolete and often outdated.
  
  Thanks
  
  Alex
  
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  MikeFriedman 11 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by alex93
  
  So would you say bounce rate reported as a metric in webmasters and not something that can bed taken as gospel, a guild line or no importance at all?
  
  For rankings, I do not believe that bounce rate is important, other than the type of bounce rate I explained above. Not everything in Google Analytics is about SEO.
  
  Does that mean bounce rate is not important to monitor at all? No. It can tell you a lot about what your users are doing. I do not think that a high bounce rate is always a bad thing though.
  
  You might have a landing page for an affiliate offer. Visitors like your content and click on your affiliate link. That is going to show a high bounce rate, but it is converting, so who cares?
  
  Or maybe it is an email list landing page. I'm more concerned with conversions in that case.
  
  Now if you have the type of site you want people spending a lot of time on and browsing, like an eCommerce site or a forum, for example, a high bounce rate would be a bad thing. It shows that either your traffic is not finding what it is looking for, your content is not very good, your design sucks, or something else that is chasing people away.
  
  Another example where a high bounce rate is not always indicative of something negative. I have a few local SEO clients. Their bounce rates are high on their home page, but their call volume is also. People are finding enough information on their home page to want to call them, and they are doing so. Really that is all that matters.
  
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  savidge4 11 years ago
  
  I totally agree with Mike, that bounce rate is not something that is measured within GA, 644 million sites in the world, and GA accounts for 20 million. I do think however that GA is used as a platform for G to verify by average the data they collect from what ever process they use to measure Bounce Rate.
  
  For me personally the 3 most important factors I look at are URL, Title and Text. Look at a search result page, and what are each of those 10 listings? URL, Title and Text. I think it would be extremely hard to argue that these elements are not at the very least the go to principle elements to a good solid SEO foundation.
  
  Once you get passed those elements I then look at tags yada yada yada, but then focus a great amount of attention to cross linking. I would say that aside from the first 3 factors I have listed above, cross linking is probably the least understood by most. I think people confuse "content" with "context" with any and all of their linking strategies, and this one in particular, I believe to be very context oriented.
  
  Somewhere in that top 10 list for me then becomes page load speed, Bounce Rate, Page Views and Time on Page. I strongly believe these 4 elements are synergistic by nature, and if one is lacking, they all will suffer. BUT... I think that any one of these can help in recovering from the lack of any of the others.
  
  I think a good example is any given article on hubspot They have fast servers ( Page Load ) they have to have stupid long time on page ( their average article is over 3000 words, and I personally will read over things twice if not 3 times ) BUT their bounce rate has to be up there, and in turn their page views are effected.
  
  hubspot is just one of those sites for me personally, that I read an article, and it gets the mind going, and it creates even more questions, and even more questions means I go right back to G and search something else. So they are ( for me at least ) getting a "Bounce" but I spent 6 minutes on the page before it happens.
  
  I would have to say the least important for me... I know I am going to catch all kinds of hell for even saying it... back linking. My primary "Site Launch" focus is a no-follow link strategy. and its obviously not about the juice, but the links based on "CONTEXT" that I look for. Quality is Quality, and sometimes it is not about the link itself, but content that is there to support the link itself.
  
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webdevpro

11 years ago

Bounce rate I think is merely an indicator to tell you about how targeted your audience is. High bounce rate means you are attracting unwilling visitors that just leave your site at the very first instance. It could have an effect on the SERPs but not quite sure.

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promo87

Banned 11 years ago

Originally Posted by alex93

How important is bounce rate in your opinion.

I am curious as to how you see and value bounce rate, how important is it, would Google place more emphasis on sites that constantly deliver low bounce rate.

Curious to see how it factors and to what degree.

Well, the fact behind the bounce rate is as simple as it looks higher the bounce rates (or I would say exit rates) it shows that no one is interested in staying at your website, either because of the site functionality, site appearance, relevancy etc. Lower the bounce rate means the users coming over to to your site are much more interested over your site or you can say you are getting correct users you are targeting upon.

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taposh123

11 years ago

Hi Bro,

If you think bounce rate is important for you, then it is important. But if you think it's not, then.......... Bounce rate indicates how engaging your content. If your content doesn't get targeted visitors, then you will suffer with high bounce rate. So create more engaging content for readers not for search engine. And also write unique content based on relevant keyword. It will help you definitely. If you have any problem with that, you can knock me any time.

Warm regards,
Taposh Kapuria

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CharlieWinifred

11 years ago

Well yes, it definitely matters. If your bounce rate is low then Google may give importance to your website because low bounce rates only shows when visitors get more what they want. But i have experienced by working on many websites whose bounce rate is high but still they get high business. It matters when you optimize your website but once you start getting business from your website, it doesn't matter either it's rate is high or low.

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savidge4

11 years ago

Originally Posted by CharlieWinifred

Well yes, it definitely matters. If your bounce rate is low then Google may give importance to your website because low bounce rates only shows when visitors get more what they want. But i have experienced by working on many websites whose bounce rate is high but still they get high business. It matters when you optimize your website but once you start getting business from your website, it doesn't matter either it's rate is high or low.

I think we all see this type of scenario. Low bounce rate does well and we associate that to the successful ranking of the site. We then see high bounce rate and can see success as well. When you are looking at an element that is a factor in ranking, generally speaking you will not have both spectrums providing results.

I think Bounce Rate is a consideration, but is not as "Important" as the other factors that have been discussed here such as time on page.

I try to look at these things in the manor I would assume Google does, and that is mathematically. With bounce rate, there are 2 options; they bounced ( -1 ) or the didn't bounce ( +1 ) You then factor in time on page; less than 1 minute ( 0 ) less than 2 minutes ( +1 ) less than 3 minutes ( +2 )

So looking at the above and then factor in the common consideration that larger text count 2000+ ranks better.... more text equals a longer time on page. Short content and a bounce would be ( -1 ) - not good. or 4 minutes on the page reading text etc ( -1 + 3 ) with a positive ranking aspect of ( +2 ) - with the bounce.

In a nutshell, I think the bounce factor can be overcome with time on page.

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ShawnSwail

11 years ago

I would like to inform you that in factor of traffic need to bounce very low because bounce rate we can say is the wast visitors. That visitor come on the website but did not like website design and content that's why instantly go out this is called bounce rate.

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DABK 11 years ago

Bounce rate is a good metric in relation with page intent.

If my copy is compelling enough that visitors land on my homepage and, without going anywhere else, call me (or click on my affiliate link), my bounce rate is going to be huge. But my site is doing well; I want my rate high, in that case.

Something else to keep in mind when thinking about bounce rate.
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vishwa

11 years ago

I don't think that bounce rate posses any effect on ranking of sites in Google SERP. I personally experience it. My blog bounce rate is 50 to 60% But My blog persist rankings in Google. However Bounce rate helps you to know the user engagement with your site.

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jessdsouza123 11 years ago

You can improve and engaging contents on page, content doesn't get more traffic with high bounce rate. Also you can see which type of pages hold users on the site best and create similar.
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geeksonrepair

Banned 11 years ago

Traffic on your website depends upon bounce rate of your website,If bounce rate is less then more traffic will comes to your website.

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madlee

11 years ago

If Bounce Rate of your website is low then google will give more importance to your website rather than high Bounce Rate website. That means Bounce Rate play important role in website ranking.

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DABK

11 years ago

No. Because, to properly use it, you'd have to know why it exists. And Google has no way of knowing.

If someone lands on a store's page, sees what they want on that page and says, Let me run to that store and get it now, what do you do with that kind of bounce rates?

How about people who land on your site, hate your page but you have the keyword they typed in Google on your page, so they click on another page. Nope, you don't have what they want. As a matter of fact, they say to themselves, This site's a loser. And make a mental note to never click on your site again.

Bounce rate is better. But user experience was not.

How does Google know such things?

At most, it can compare you to other sites in the same industry... But even within one industry, there are high and low bounce rates... If it goes for average, it reduces the user experience for a lot of people.

Originally Posted by madlee

If Bounce Rate of your website is low then google will give more importance to your website rather than high Bounce Rate website. That means Bounce Rate play important role in website ranking.

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