How is a Bounce defined for mobile devices?

[ennovators]

Hi,

does anyone know or have a link for me, where I can find, what or how a Bounce is defined for mobile devices?

If you are on safari mobile and click on the homebutton, is that a bounce?
If you are surfing and you get a message alert on the top and you change application, is that a bounce?

Any ideas are much appreciated.

Thanks

[KristinaKledzik]

Hi Mirko,

"Bounce rate," as calculated by Google Analytics, is the percentage of people who come to your site and then don't continue to another page or do anything that triggers an Event. For example, if someone lands on a blog post, reads it, loves it, then moves on to Candy Crush Saga without actually interacting with your site, that's a bounce. If someone lands on your blog post, hates it and immediately hits the "back" button, that's a bounce. If someone lands on your blog post and watches a video, but you don't have Event tracking set up for that, that's a bounce.

So, if you're trying to make sense of your web analytics-provided "bounce rate," keep that in mind. Some people like to set up events which will fire every 15 seconds or so that people have the page up on their screens, but that can bloat your analytics data. It depends on how important bounce rate is to you. I personally like setting up Events that fire as you scroll down the page, because I think that's a better indication of engagement.

If you're asking because you're concerned that a high mobile bounce rate is going to affect your mobile rankings versus desktop, you're going to need to dig deeper. Google doesn't look at bounce rate as an analytics platform would count it, Google pays attention to how quickly people return to their search results after visiting your site, and what they do after that. Bounce rate isn't a great indication of what Google's looking for. Start tracking engagement with Events based on how far people get on the page to get a better idea of what Google is seeing.

Good luck!

Kristina

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Can I just add that Google have confirmed that they don't use bounce rate when figuring your search positions, so as long as you are just looking at this from a usability study, then that is great. I just didn't want you worrying this might impact results.

Will clicking the home button on an iPhone / iPad be classed as a bounce? I highly doubt it.

-Andy

[ennovators]

Hi guys,

thanks for your reply,

I'm asking because my BR for mobile is currently quite high (we have a mobile site version). The thing with closing a site on mobile is quite different to desktop as I think. Not everyone knows, how to properly close an app (e.x safari on iphone)  for example. Really closing it, means double clicking on homebutton and shutting down the app.

If I think about my own behaviour, I never close a window on my mobile device (or very rarely). So if changing the app or clicking on the homebutton is a bounce, that bounce rate is not just affected by a site but more by the usage behaviour of a mobile device.

What do you think?

[UmarKhan]

Hey Mirko,

I agree with Andy here, just wanted to add that generally the bounce rate on mobile is bit high.

when people are on mobile, they are usually in hurry as they are in hurry and looking for the relevant information asap. If I'm searching something on desktop, I'll take the time to go through whole website. But if I'm in my Accord and looking for the nearest cafe, I just want the information immediately. I'm not going to spend my time to look around a site if a site does not tell me immediately, I am gonna close it right away.

Hope this helps!

Umar

[Andy.Drinkwater]

As far as I understand, a bounce is the same as a bounce on a desktop. If you go back using the browser button, this would be a bounce. If you hit the home button, I suspect that this would be as well - but it all depends on how this is reported back. I can't see how changing apps might be considered amongst this though.

Is there a reason you are looking for this information?

-Andy