Bounce rates plummeted

[Ericc22]

In Google Analytics, my average bounce rates plummeted basically overnight.  I went from a consistent average daily bounce rate of about 65% to an average daily bounce rate near 5%.  My average number of visitors has stayed the same.  I don't think there is any significant change I made to my site that may have caused this.  Has anyone else had the same problem and know why it happened and how to fix it?  Thanks in advance!

[KeriMorgret]

I was just about to reply with check your analytics tools. I had the same issue happen on a WP site, and it was because I had two copies of GA running. Glad you figured it out, but so sorry that wasn't your true bounce rate!

[AlanMosley]

Good to hear you worked it out

[Ericc22]

For anyone who else who may be curious, I ended up figuring out what the problem was.  We had installed a WordPress plug in to track outbound links from the site so a lot of people that left the site were being recorded as having an event and therefore were not a bounce.  When I disabled the plug in our bounce rates went back to normal.

[AlanMosley]

I havent done the maths, but yes that sounds about right

[Ericc22]

Our Pages/visit average did also go up by about 2 pages around the same time.  Would that be enough to account for a 60% drop in bounce rate??? A 5% bounce rate seems too good to be true.

[AlanMosley]

has you Pages/Visit gone up?

if your bounce rate goes down, you would expect Pages/Visit to go up.

[Ericc22]

The low bounce rate is great. If the data is accurate. My concern is that the data is not accurate. We went from about 65% to 5% in 2 days yet we made no changes on the site.

So in other words, if it we had done something to create the dramatic decrease, that would be great. But we did nothing. And given the huge decrease we are left to wonder if there is a problem with the data.

Thoughts?

[AlanMosley]

Fix it? A low bounce rate is good. it means 95% of people are visiting more the one page of your site.