I have a question concerning bounce rates.

My blog has a bounce rate of about 70% despite I have started to include a lot of internal link in my articles and my blog is of relevance to those who find it via organic search. I don't quite understand still why such a high bounce rate and I am still trying to learn how to use GA to be able to fully understand this dilemna.

My question is, all my internal links inside the articles are to be opened in a new tab/page so if the reader clicks on the link as he reads the landing article page, a new page/tab loads up with the clicked linked article (of relevance, as I carefully choose them).

Does opening in a new tab affect bounce rates negatively? Does it count as not bouncing if the reader has an internal link opening in a new page of the browser? Or if the user clicks on the internal link, has it opening in a new page/tab and he then closes both the linked article and the landing page article, it counts as bounced?

This is the only thing I could think for now as to why my bounce rate is so high as all my internal links are set to open in a new browser page/tab.

Excuse the noobness of the question. Thank you.

I am not sure...but I do believe that opening up links in new tab does give readers a reason to move away... as they might suspect click popups etc. You can try opening links in the same window. Most sites open internal links in same page.

But it is all based on testing. You will need to give some week time to both of your settings and see what works best for you.

You are probably correct there. A bounce is registered when a user clicks off the website without first visiting another page in that site.

I would make all my links open in the same tab.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by puneetas3

I am not sure...but I do believe that opening up links in new tab does give readers a reason to move away... as they might suspect click popups etc. You can try opening links in the same window. Most sites open internal links in same page.

But it is all based on testing. You will need to give some week time to both of your settings and see what works best for you.

Thanks, that is what I thought but the thing is that I link to other of my site's articles within the text body. My writing style is somewhat chaotic so I go from one topic to another, only to get back on track to the topic of the landing article (I try to write with a unique style). My readers appreciate this writing style but it means that I put my internal links all over the article.

With this putting links all over the article, the reader would click on the link and would lose track of the previous article if the link didn't open up in a new page/tab. That is my initial thought but maybe I should encourage testing on this particular issue. 70% bounce rate seems very high to the potential of my blog, I am monitoring the landing keywords to my blog and all my internal links are of relevance.

Originally Posted by blackhat-dudette

You are probably correct there. A bounce is registered when a user clicks off the website without first visiting another page in that site.

I would make all my links open in the same tab.

Hope this helps.

For the bolded part:

1) User lands on blog page with article relevant to his searched words
2) Clicks on internal link as he reads through landing page article
3) Clicked link opens in new page/tab
4) User doesn't like the newly opened link and he wasn't liking the article on the landing page anyway. He closes both.
5) Is that counted as bouncing because the flow of the user visit occurred in a newly open tab/page instead of occurring within the same browser page?

Apologies if I am splitting hairs but I have yet to fully understand how cookies and bounce rates work.

Thanks again.

Hey,

Yes I would say this will count as a bounce as the actions the user has taken shows me that they haven't found any content on that site that was relevant to the search query.

Hope that makes sense lol.

One thing to consider with bounce rates is the surfing habits that many people have. I've noticed something about this from watching other people use the internet when they didn't know why I was watching. I've seen many friends and relatives just open up a site on a whim or along with a bunch of other sites because it was sorta related to what they were looking for. They already had a predetermined notion of what it was they wanted to see and if the page didn't have exactly that then they would just close it. This had nothing to do with whether or not the page had accurate and useful content.

That may not be very clear, but one example I can give is a relative was looking for <insert town> carpet cleaners. They couldn't remember the name but remembered what the logo looked like. They searched for <insert town> carpet cleaners and just opened the first half dozen sites to see the logo and then closed them all when it wasn't there. Those top sites could have had the best design and service available, but that didn't matter. People do this kind of thing all the time in a million different ways.

Dont put too much into bounce rate. Bounce rate varies across different types of websites. A 70% bounce rate may be perfectly fine for a blog of your category.

Here's some examples:

facebook.com
Low bounce rate

amazon.com
Low bounce rate

blackhatworld.com
Low bounce rate

boingboing.net
Very high bounce rate

Huffingtonpost.com
medium bounce rate

NewYorkTimes.com
above average bounce rate

cnn.com
medium bounce rate

tmz.com
above average boounce rate

playboy.com
below average bounce rate

maxim.com
average bounce rate

youtube.com
below average bounce rate