Bounce Rate concerns

[DrayScherm]

MrGramm,

I'd be okay with your interpretation except for one thing - all the other pages of the website had 1 page view, in total. So, if on average these 100 people viewed another page of the website, why aren't there pageviews for any of the other pages of the website? All the pages of the website have Google Analytics, so all of the pageviews should be logged. But there were none.

... Duane

[LD]

I'm really worried about my stats.
The Google Analytics stats show that my site's bounce rate is 70%.
I think I need to do something.

Not trying to hijack the thread; I understand there may be many factors and I know it's a broad question, but what is an "acceptable" bounce rate?

[NJ]

I used to work on a website that put out a weekly newsletter for the timber industry. The newsletter subscriptions were about 10,000. Each newsletter had headlines and the first paragraph or sentence of the most interesting articles from that week in various topics. The pattern was that the people receiving the newsletter would click a link in the newsletter, view the page, close their browser, and repeat. The fact that we had a 50% bounce rate was due to how they were using the newsletter!

[jack jastin]

The Wikipedia comment on timeouts suggests the opposite:

"A commonly used session timeout value is 30 minutes[2]. In this case, if a visitor views a page, doesn't look at another page, and leaves his browser idle for longer than 30 minutes, they will register as a bounce.."

So idle sessions should count as bounces, no?

Thanks...Duane

What do you mean by ? Up to the 30 minutes! I don't agree with you at all.

[madpringle]

That's not a bad bounce rate imo. Good stuff

[LD]

That's not a bad bounce rate imo. Good stuff

What bounce rate do you consider "not bad"?

[C0ldf1re]

You have to look at time on the page (as stated above) and unique visitors. If you have 100 entrances but only 1 unique visitor it skews everything. You also have to check out bots. Supposedly they are weeded out but ...

This all sounds very good, but is it all fact, or is some informed speculation? I mean do you have sources that you can quote for these assertions?

[cleanfreak]

MrGramm,

I'd be okay with your interpretation except for one thing - all the other pages of the website had 1 page view, in total. So, if on average these 100 people viewed another page of the website, why aren't there pageviews for any of the other pages of the website? All the pages of the website have Google Analytics, so all of the pageviews should be logged. But there were none.

... Duane

I would double, and maybe even triple check to make sure your analytics is set up correctly. Then run a test where you navigate a specific path several times to see if those pages register as views.

[deepsand]

Agree with Aaditvabourne. Bounce rate should be nil / less for any site. To reduce your bounce rate you have to update fresh unique content in your site & to attract visitors, reduce load time, give news letter & RSS feed for your site to get back the visitors traffic.

Did you notice that Aaditvabourne is no longer with us?

Do you suppose that that might owe to his posting the same kind of low quality post as this one?

Not only are your suggestions irrelevant to the OP's question, they are in and of themselves quite incorrect.

Simply posting your opinions, as opposed to facts, and without regard to what is actually being discussed, is of no value to anyone here.

[deepsand]

Not trying to hijack the thread; I understand there may be many factors and I know it's a broad question, but what is an "acceptable" bounce rate?

That depends solely on what you goals are, and to what extent they are being achieved.

Those who preach that lower is always better are speaking out of the wrong anatomical orifice.

Example: you've a landing page with a call-to-action that leads to a 3rd-party shopping cart. Your immediate on-site goal is for each and every visitor to do just that. If you attain that ideal, your bounce rate will be 100%.

'Nuff said?