Bounce Back or Bounce Through
-
Bounce rate is defined as 'single page visits to a site divided by total visits to the site' as I understand it. It could be argued that a well designed site might vector people on to other sites effectively (I generally use Wikipedia this way for instance). On the other hand a site that bounces people back to where they came from may be genuinely poor. So the questions:
Is the bounce rate really calculated in the stated way by Google?
Is it used, as far as we know, as a metric for the search engine?
What should we do to mitigate the effects of this poor metric?!
thanks,
Mike
-
Actually, bounce rate would be of a concern to search engines, at least for visits that originate from the search engine. The SEs want the users to have a good experience, and if a user clicks on a result and then comes right back to the results page, the SEs may feel that the user did not have a good experience with that result and maybe a different result for that query should be shown.
-
Thanks, yes, it looks from this as if the experts think that Google is doing what we would hope they do and not take account of bounce through. Although of course there may be good reasons for a site not wanting bounce through either (as EGOL notes), it shouldn't be a concern for the search engines
-
As far as I'm aware, Google will use your 'bounce back' rate (where by users return to the search results page straight away) as a search metric as this could indicate whether the site is relevant for that specific search query. This was mentioned in the 2011 SEO Ranking Factors Report.
Hope that helps
-
If search engines are using this data they are certainly only using it for sites competing for the same or similar keywords.
A high bounce rate can be bad or it can be "normal". It would be bad if your site is offensive (and people run away), it can be bad if your site has irrelevant content for the query, it can be bad if your site has thin content, you can probably think of more.
It can be normal if you have a dictionary site and the searcher finds the word, gets the definition and leaves happily.
THE IMPORTANT THING TO DO..... I believe that everyone should be working to reduce their bounce rate and any webmaster should be able to find improvements.
The best way to do it is to have relevant links, obviously placed on every page. For example in the dictionary site your goal should be have linked words within the definition, links to related words adjacent to the definition and links to a few enticing articles along the side.
On an article site you can links within the text to related articles, a "recommended" box of links beside the article and even a few enticing links to "popular" or "related" articles where every one will see them.
Try to reduce your bounce rate by improving your site and making your relevant content visible on every page.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Any disadvantages of employing additional images which open in new window? Will it impact bounce rate and rankings?
Hi all, Our website is all about our software product. Generally our website pages are filled with 3 to 6 screenshots of our product features. As Google recently shifting to mobile index and pageload speed is going to be priority, we decided to compress the images on our pages and show the same images of large size in new window when someone clicks on a image. I wonder if this helps or has any disadvantages? Users may click on these clickable images while browsing the pages and may shift to new window to view the image. Will this have any negative impact on bounce rate? Please share your thoughts. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Canonicals from sub-domain to main domain: How much content relevancy matters? Any back-links impact?
Hi Moz community, I have this different scenario of using canonicals to solve the duplicate content issue in our site. Our subdomain and main domain have similar landing pages of same topics with content relevancy about 50% to 70%. Both pages will be in SERP and confusing users; possibly search engine too. We would like solve this by using canonicals on subdomain pointing to main domain pages. Even our intention is to only to show main domain pages in SERP. I wonder how Google handles it? Will the canonicals will be respected with this content relevancy? What happens if they don't respect? Just ignore or penalise for trying to do this? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
How to take down a sub domain which is receiving many spammy back-links?
Hi all, We have a sub domain which has less engagement for last few years. Eventually many spammy back links pointed to this sub domain. There are relevant back links too. We have deleted most of the pages which are employing spammy content or which have spammy back links. Still I'm confused whether to take this sub domain down or keep it. The confusion between "relevant backlinks might be helping our website" and "spammy backlinks are affecting to drop in rankings"? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Domain location is a ranking factor? Back links & website?
If a website trying to rank in US and it has received many back-links from domains hosting from other countries; how it will impact website ranking? Can a website hosted in country will rank well in other country? How much the hosted location matters? Like....domain hosted in Germany but trying to rank in US?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Will this fix my bounce rate?
If I understand bounce rate correctly, what it basically means is that someone clicks on your SERP, and then clicks back to google? But, it doesn't matter if they spent 10 minutes on your page or 10 seconds...so if that's right, then can you lower you bounce rate by getting someone to click on another internal link inside the original page they visited from the SERPs? So for example, if a user clicks on the SERP result for our webpage X, then the users clicks on an internal link on our page X to another one of our webpages ,Y, will that lower the bounce rate, even if the user eventually backs out to the original SERP page? Thanks, Ruben
Algorithm Updates | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Keywords ranks 1 position up for 24 hours or less and gets back to its normal position.
Hi, I don't know if this is strange or just normal thing for some keywords to rank one position up for around 24 hours and get back to its original position. Making it clear to understand, i have these 3 keywords kw1, kw2, kw3 on first page of google on position #3,#3 and #4 respectively. The content of the site is almost static so adding new contents to the site is out of question for now. I noticed that at least 2 times a week those keywords rises to one position above and then gets back to their own normal position. I noticed the serp position change takes place for around 24 hours only.
Algorithm Updates | | MindlessWizard0 -
Does Google Analytics Adjusted Bounce Rate Lead to Increase in Average Time per Visitor?
Hello, I just recently implemented adjusted bounce rate onto one of the websites that I track via google analytics. (http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2322974/How-to-Implement-Adjusted-Bounce-Rate-ABR-via-Google-Tag-Manager-Tutorial) Since doing so, obviously my bounce rate has gone down significantly, nearly half of what it use to be, but I've also noticed an increase in the average time per visitor. In fact, the increase of average time per visitor began the same day I adjusted the bounce rate. Has this happened to anyone else? Can someone please explain why/how this may occur?
Algorithm Updates | | WebServiceConsulting.com0 -
How do blog comment/forum back links compare to editorial back links?
I know that Google prefers a varied back link profile, and so it's ideal to get both - but I wanted to know, are followed back links from blog comments, forum posts etc. (i.e. The low-hanging fruit) weighted significantly lower by Google than links appearing within the of a page, for example? If so, is it possible to quantify by how much?
Algorithm Updates | | ZakGottlieb710