Today I had read a lot and I'm still curious about few things. Is bounce rate matter? If it matter how g00gle know this without analytics' code? I know I must do some split tests to answer myself, but if some of you can help me will be awesome. If the bounce rate have weight in the SERP, than this means that this is the way a bots understand for the quality of the website's content?! Other point - maybe 99% of the top 10 pages have social share icons on them, but tons of them haven't a shares - how the bots knows the quality of the content then? This is what I think - when on the site have analytics code - than the bounce rate matter. If the site haven't the code, than g00gle only tracks metrics like social signals, clicks (by referrers), maybe alexa rank, the number of the clicks from the impressions... BTW the bots track these things and they have matter even without the bounce rate. Please, share your point! Thank you! Nasko
I'm not entirely sure about the whole question, but I'm going to give a shot at the answer for you. Google doesn't technically care about bounce rate. They claim (and are mostly likely not lying) that they don't track anything that happens on your site. The analytics code does not matter, the SERP ratings aren't using any data that it tracks. What Google DOES track is if you return to the SERP after a short amount of time. They could track you through a variety of ways but most likely they have their own cookie or your IP. I don't know, probably an easy answer but it doesn't matter, they know if you return to the SERP. This has nothing to do with the page you landed on. They are ONLY aware that you returned quickly. If you returned quickly, then Google takes that as a sign that the page you clicked on didn't answer the question you had (otherwise, you wouldn't have returned), therefore, it isn't a good page to show for whatever query it was that took you to this SERP. In aggregate, they can tell if the page answers the question more often than not. It gets a little more complicated how they know whether it's a quality page but that's the basis of it. You're bounce rate stands for users who entered your site and only saw one page. This is the closes proxy you will get to knowing how many people didn't find their answers on your site from the SERP (a bad sign according to Google) BUT a user could technically land on the page, stay there for 3-5 minutes reading your article, and then leave. Did they find what they were looking for? yes. Did they register as a bounced visit? yes. So it's only a proxy.
^^^ Awesome post. This is one of the first times I've seen someone on a blackhat forum correctly formulating the meaning and significance of bounce rate. OP, disregard bounce rate and CTR as well (last one only for SEO ranking purposes) and look into dwell time. From my tests it's a HUGE ranking factor.
Yes, g00gle's antispam boy tells that the bounce rate is noting related to the SERP. But, why there have 100s of books and products, that help for reducing the bounce rate for higher ranking? They are WSO maybe? lol. I see tons of sites that autorefresh the pages - this is for changing the ads, but also for reducing the bounce rate. I know many webmasters that modify the analytucs code so it count each 10 seconds. This because if the visitor stay on single page 5 minutes and click nowhere, the analytics will count is as 00:00. Yes, I am curious how exact the bot understand which page have good content. Maybe if we know this and manipulate it, the ranking today will be simple than ever. Maybe I must post the last on blackhat SEO section to get the answer. Yes, the IP and system tracking is one of the factors. Not sure for the social signals and for the bounce rate. BUT the IP tracking is almost the same like the bounce rate I think. In my overall experience I can say, that my sites with high bounce rate are ranked worst than these with low bounce rate, but there have so many other factors and I can't be sure. This is why I ask.
In my testing, bounce rate is only a factor of the entire site metrics. When it comes to ranking, it seems that the SERPs look at your web sites site metrics overall value when it comes to increased or decreased rankings. Site metrics typically consist of bounce rate, page views per session, as well as time on site. I worked to have something developed that would improve a web site's site metric scores within minutes of installing a plugin. Customers have confirmed it has helped their sites rank better. You can learn more by checking out my signature. PM me if you would like a free trial.
It's definitely a factor, the significance of which depends on the niche you are in and your competitors.
Dumb question, is this a 'bounce'? : visitor lands on a page and clicks an affiliate link and goes to amazon.
Your plugin should work absolutely great to increase dwell time and improve rankings. No denying about that, but the problem is it creates a pretty huge footprint as well. So when it becomes succesful and too many people start to use it Google might crack down and you'll be shooting yourself in the foot. But yes, it should work and it's also great for non-SEO purposes.
The plugin does work very well...but it was designed for stealth. We have features in place that if enabled prevent bots from ever seeing the plugin. The Ultimate version of the plugin also has the ability to automatically rename both the cookie and installation folder that it uses thus making finding the plugin even more difficult. The filename that the plugin uses is also the most common filename on a web server this not really leaving any footprint behind. The only real risk is if someone were to come and do a manual review...but we do have the ability to block IP addresses and you can also configure the script to only function for a specific percentage of users which could help in those cases.
I would just add: Google does have tracking cookies, they have google analytics on tons of website so they don't need USER to return instantly to google to know USERS time spent on website.
Hi, This thread is very helpfull, i was going to create a new thread to ask the questions but I found this one so here is my question: Can Google see / know my website bounce rate if I dont use Google Webmaster and Google Analytics on my website ? If i dont have any of their links and my website is not connected to thoses tools will they still be able to see my website bounce rate ? And if they are able to do it, how are they doing it without the help of the tools ? Thanks.
That should not be counted as bounce rate. A webpage can refer another webpage for better/details info for a specific term (Like Wikipedia). The main reason behind bounce rate is " if a webpage answered the question (search query) or not". If visitor returned to the search page too quickly, then that should be counted as "Bounce" as CredibleZephyre stated. It's not only about your site if have Analytics or not. Its more about your site visitors, if they have tracking cookies, if they came from Google search, if they came from another site that uses Google cookies or Analytics. Google and other search engines have many different way to track.
