What bounce rate range is good

[domainmadness]

Bounce rate has A LOT of impact on search engine rankings. Both directly and indirectly.

For directly google doesn't use the same bouncerate as you see in analytics. For google bounce is immediate return to search engine.

You got any source to back this up?

 

[ErjeBoevem]

You got any source to back this up?

Well there was released/leaked a document where a google engineer had wrote an algorithm for immediate return to search engine. If I don't remember wrong his last name was "Panda" aswell.

Tried to search for the document on google/bhw, but couldn't find it (it is here though).

Anyways: Here is another article that says so http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/21/bounce-rate-seo/

And even though it might not have so much effect as a direct signal it has much influence on SERPs anyways. Because a page with low bouncerate will attract more links....

 

[phluid]

So why does Alexa give your bounce rate if there is no way of tracking it?

 

[JenniFranks]

So why does Alexa give your bounce rate if there is no way of tracking it?

It knows the bounce rate for people who have the Alexa toolbar installed.

 

[Blackhat Scott]

Straight from Google I've raid anything above 50% is bad, 35% to 49% is cause for concern. Below35% you are doing great

 

[Gallitin]

I'm at 58%. But the time they spend of the people that don't bounce is at 4min average, so I'm happy.

 

[domainmadness]

Theres no point that bounce rate affects results. I have bounce rate on my sites 50-70%, but I have high CTR 20-24%. People come to my sites, quickly finds what they are looking for and leaves. And then comes back when they need something again. If G takes it so that its bad that people quickly finds what they are looking for, there would be no point to make customer friendly sites for my niche. If I wanted to have low bounce rate, I would have to make my site so, that people dont find what they are looking for.

 

[JenniFranks]

Here's hard data showing it does have an impact:

1. http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/21/bounce-rate-seo/
2. http://www.1stsearchenginerankings.com/google-bounce-factor-research-data-is-in.html

 

[funkman]

One of my sites had a history record of 11% bounce for 2-3 months for several URL's, and overall bounce of 18% for entire site, combined - with all traffic sources included.

At first, I was just happy it's low, and wasn't paying attention, but when it ramped up to 10k visits a day in 2 months time, and when I saw all pages with lowest bounce hitting the G sky positions and literaly crushing the competitors (#1,#2 with site links), I thought about it and had it analyzed.

Side effects on that particular site were that I even ranked for some heavy keywords (like, 1000-1500 visits per day from single keyword) I wasn't even doing SEO for.

Few weeks later, was starting another site, after some time, when I had enough data to analyze user behavior (> 100 UV/d) I got back to design, UX and shit to lower the bounce for second site as much as possible, aside doing the quality content and rest of known SEO stuff.

With bounce around 21-25% (second one, which is, btw, decrease of 7-9% in total compared with what I had before), I see my site also moving up in ranks heavily (from top 10 to top 5).

I'm talking about sites with large competition, and exact searches over 200k for main KW, not to say millions in broad volume. And white hat approach, so it may not apply to shitty autoblogs.

Now, I do see bounce rate being neglected by many webmasters, BH or WH, and it suits me fine, actually

And one last thing; I do recognize effect that strong link building has on any site, but what I've also discovered is - bounce is much easier to control, and you don't have to have more links than competitor to beat them, or - to put it simple - some known SEO elements can be won against the competitor by using low bounce and relevant content

No need for thanks, just send me money

 

[johndea]

Relevant Results = Positive Experience

The goal of a search engine is to provide the most relevant results. When people have positive experiences, for instance ? being able to find what they are looking for quickly in that search engine ? they are usually willing to trust that search engine and are likely to decide to continue using that search engine in the future.

Search engines consider user behavior when determining where a webpage should rank in the search engine results pages. The historic data that search engines collect from user interaction between the search engine?s results pages and the destination website makes up a small portion of the overall ranking algorithm.

Bounce Rate and the Searcher?s Intention

Upon clicking on a listing in a search engine like Google or Bing, a visitor might enter a website on the definition page for a certain phrase. This means that the page of the website the visitor lands on actually contains the explanation or definition for the word for which they are searching. The visitor will most likely find what they are looking for on that page and leave the site immediately without taking any further action. In this case, when determining the relevance and usefulness of a webpage, the search engine will most likely not view a high bounce rate negatively because of the assumed intent of the searcher. A search engines that has the ability to pick up on the behavior associated with certain types of search phrases would probably would not penalize a website by lowering their positioning solely due to a high bounce rate or low average time on site.

As the goal of a search engine is to provide the most relevant results, when the search engine directs a searcher to the definition page of an online dictionary, it tends to meet the needs of the searcher, which provides a good experience and makes people want to come back for more.

Source: http://www.analyticsbouncerate.com/bounce-rate-web-portals-referential-content-sites/ / my colleagues at the Orion Group

Can Google measure your bounce rate if you don't have analytics installed?
If so, how?

 

[JenniFranks]

Can Google measure your bounce rate if you don't have analytics installed?
If so, how?

As mentioned previously, they track it by users clicking "back" and returning to the search results.

 

[rippy]

Anything below 50% is good IMHO.

 

[adbot]

For a professional site, we expect to see a 35% bounce rate as an indication of success. If the bounce rate gets over 50%, we start looking for ways to improve either the site or the quality of traffic.

Spot on. These are the exact standards I go by.

PS. I think bounce rate plays a large role in long term ranking. If the site below you has a much lower bounce rate, it won't be below you for too long.

 

[domainmadness]

Well, if its so, is there a blackhat way to lower your bounce rates? My traffic is 85% from SE's, I have relevant content - but still my bounce rates are very high, 50-70%. Not sure if theres any tricks to lower that?

 

[jerzydawg]

Well, if its so, is there a blackhat way to lower your bounce rates? My traffic is 85% from SE's, I have relevant content - but still my bounce rates are very high, 50-70%. Not sure if theres any tricks to lower that?

Here is a trick: Get visitors that stay on your site for 30 seconds or more.

 

[BigMarcusStud]

I'd take a 90% bounce rate if it means that my site's visitors find my Amazon link and click on it in under 10 seconds.

 

[steviep]

I don't think bounce rate has anything to do with rankings. If your visitor finds exactly what they need on the first page they come to, why should you be penalized for them leaving the site?

Besides, Google cannot measure this unless you have Analytics running. So that's a huge % of sites they cannot track.

Yes and no,

I agree that bounce rate is a very inaccurate and very often misleading number. You can have a page where everythign you were looking for is presented right in front of you. So the searcher visitis, sees the answer and he leaves. The next has the answer hidden three level deep, so searcher arrives and has to click three times to get to the answer, whos better?

No, in the sense that with Chrome Google has a big tool to know what people are doing...

 

[letterman]

If I don't remember wrong his last name was "Panda" aswell.

Had to smile at this, I think I know his brother "Page Rank"

Anyway here is my opinion, this is not backed by anything other than experience. Bounce rate is relative to what the search term is, so if you have a site about monkeys and the average bounce rate for sites returned in search for monkeys is 30% you would probably be downgraded in search if you are substantialy above this figure. However if you have a site about coupon codes where the average bounce rate is 90% you would be fine with that higher bounce rate.

Looking at bounce rate and comparing one site to another that is not in the same niche dosent give you any information. Bounce rate will be relative to the subject of the search.

So if you have a site that has a higher bounce rate than the average for the search term you will be downgraded eventualy.

Also (just to throw a spanner in the works) have you considered the impact of image search, this can have a massive impact on bounce rates. If someone is searching Google images and just clicks on an image to get it they will never navigate your site. They just grab the image and leave.

Like many things with Google I think it is a mistake to take any one ellement in isolation, bounce rate is one part of the ranking factor, how big a part only Google knows.

 

[klawre1221]

I don't think bounce rate has anything to do with rankings. If your visitor finds exactly what they need on the first page they come to, why should you be penalized for them leaving the site?

Besides, Google cannot measure this unless you have Analytics running. So that's a huge % of sites they cannot track.

They track everything on their serp pages.

 

[letterman]

Just thought I would add this.

I think this is fairly obvious but if you want to lower your bounce rate you have to get inside the head of a visitor to your site, check your analytics and see what keywords your vistors are using to arrive at your site where there are high abandonment rates. Offer some strong content to click through to another page using this keyword, make it prominent (using larger font, eye catching font colour, etc) and position towards the top of the entry page.

Hypertext link this to another page on your site, this way a visitor will hopefully click it and go to another page.

So if the keyword vistors are using is "Monkeys" as the search term to hit your site you have somethink like "3 Things You Must Read About Monkeys" which is well positioned and linked to more content on your site, if this is compelling enough visitors will click it and move through your pages, I used this technique and lowered the bounce rate on one of my sites from 60%+ to 42% for one search term.