Will javascript generated links affect my bounce rate?

[Benji87]

Hi all,

I run a site called Applicable Jobs (http://www.applicablejobs.com) and from analyising my analytics I notice my bounce rate is unusually high at around 85%. I'm keen to get this right down as I've read recently that a high bounce rate is a metric Google uses in determining positioning in the SERPs.

I honestly don't think it's the quality of my content because I feel it's genuinely useful to my target audience but I'm wondering if the way my jobs list is generated is causing an issue.

At the moment I have my jobs listings generated through javascript so I can have nice effects and use a bit of ajax but if Google crawls it, it obviously won't be able to see the listings.

So I'm wondering if when a user comes to the site and they click on one of the job listings, does the Google analytics code recognise that click because that link is generated through javascript?

Thanks

[ShaMenz]

Hi Benjamin,

I believe the way GA tracking works is that the the click to next page can only be registered when the visitor arrives on the next page with a tracking code.

This is the first thing to check before you go tearing your hair out over the Bounce rate and fiddling with the site...

I recently discovered that a client's very high bounce rate in GA was actually the result of the developer having omitted the GA Tracking code from 60% of pages on the site!

I would eliminate that as a possible issue first.

Sha