How important is bounce rate?

1. 87

   suzzycueposted 10 years ago

   I have a high bounce rate in the eighties and I have read it should be at 50 . Is this true? Can anyone share how they get their bounce rate to the fifties?

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2. 95

   Alison Grahamposted 10 years ago

   If you are referring to your bounce rate in webmaster tools, Google acknowledges that it does have problems recording actual bounce rate as there are a lot of factors which affect it and if your metrics show a reasonable length of time on a page, or that a reader has gone on to read another page and again, spent a reasonable amount of time there (not just clicked off the site), you are probably ok.
   
   On hubpages, a much better metric is the view duration in the hub metrics in the stats section.
   
   You can increase time on page by letting the reader know they have found exactly what they are looking for in your opening paragraphs and telling them what they will find on your hub. Providing video is a great way of getting readers to stay longer as often they will watch the video within your hub, not click to youtube to watch it.
   
   Providing good visual images also attracts attention and providing captions which also attract a reader's attention is a good idea (apart from the seo benefit).
   
   Here on hubpages my bounce rate is quite high according to Google but my hubs are mostly getting good responses from readers in terms of comments and amazon clicks.

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      suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Yes I was referring to that . Thank you Alison Graham. I appreciate your info and I understand better now.

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   Jeanne Grunertposted 10 years ago

   A bounce rate of 70-80 or higher is considered a warning sign of a poor match between keywords and page contents. In other words, the web page is coming up for specific keyword phrases, but when site visitors go to the page, they're not seeing what they expect on the page. If your bounce rate is consistently in the 80s, you might want to check your titles and descriptions against the page contents and see how well they match. Somehow, people are coming to your hubs but leaving quickly.  I wouldn't put too much stock in a bounce rate on HubPages - I agree with Alison that here, duration is a better metric. It shows how long folks are staying with your content.

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      suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Ok thank you Jeanne Grunert.

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4. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   If a person hits your hub, reads it, sees a great ad and clicks it, that counts as a bounce.
   
   I ignore this stat for hubs.

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      livewithrichardposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I agree.  If your goals are to earn ad income through your hubs then a high bounce rate is what you want.  I personally want readers to click away from my hub, preferably through an ad or product link and not by way of the back button or HP's bogus "Related Search" module. 
      
      I don't want to give away everything and the kitchen sink.  I want to provide just enough information to peak the readers interest and then give the reader options via product links or through my link modules.  If that doesn't happen then I would want them to click through the 2 links in my "groups" above the "Discover More Hubs" and lastly through the "Discover More Hubs" module.
      
      This is just me though.  I'm not here to build a big following or readers. I'm here promoting products and info hubs.

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      1. 87

         suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         I agree with you livewithrichard but i also read if your bounce rate is too high Google won't send you traffic and can cancel your page. This is what I am wondering about . How high until your page is gone or is this a mith?

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      suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      So now I want them to bounce psycheskinner? But I also need them to spend time on my page. That is confusing but of course I want them to go to the ads or what is the point of the hubs.

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      1. 95

         wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         A bounce is counted any time a reader leaves your site from the page they entered on.  From google:
         
         "Bounce Rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page)."
         
         So you write a hub on how to boil water properly, a novice comes to see how to do that.  They read your hub, look at the pictures, watch the video and finally, after learning that difficult task, leaves.  Your hub was successful; it attracted a reader who stayed around for several minutes, got what they needed and left to go give you an organic backlink on their own cooking site.  You also had a bounce.
         
         A high bounce rate is inevitable when readers come to you for information and you provide it.  About the only thing you can do is entice them to visit another of your hubs, but while that's very nice when you do, (or when they leave by clicking an ad) most readers won't be interested.

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            Alison Grahamposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Very well explained Wilderness! One hugely popular site I could mention, tells you the time in different time zones. I should think the average time on site is around 10 seconds, their bounce rate must be close to 100% yet they provide valuable information and their visitors get the information they need. This is why I think the view duration metric on hubpages is better than worrying about the bounce rate. If you write well and keep their attention so they read the information you provide and hopefully exit via an Amazon link or advertisement, that's all to the good!

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            1. 87

               suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               Thanks again Allison.

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            suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thank you Wilderness. I am not going to worry about bounce rate now.

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               wildernessposted 10 years agoin reply to this

               You're most welcome.
               
               Time on page is far more important, and IS something you will want to watch.  You will always get some visitors that are there just long enough to read the first line and leave, but if you begin to see a lot of very short visits, it likely means that you are attracting the wrong traffic for some reason.  Bad title, bad summary, bad keyword choice, google doesn't understand what the actual topic is, etc.
               
               If that happens too much, google will stop sending visitors and your traffic will plummet.  Obviously then something to watch for.

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            Ceres Schwarzposted 10 years agoin reply to this

            Thanks for this detailed explanation on bounce rates. You even provided an example, which just helped to make things clearer for me. I was confused about this too. So, it's okay to have a high bounce rate? That's not bad? I just checked my analytics and I saw that I seem to have a rather high bounce rate too.

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         psycheskinnerposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         Bounce is just the number of pages they look at (1), not how long they are on that page.

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5. 74

   brakel2posted 10 years ago

   How reliable is GA at giving average time on site?

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      Jenn-Anneposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I've been wondering about GA's time on site metric too.

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         Susana Sposted 10 years agoin reply to this

         It's complicated. Here's some light reading for you! 
         
         https://support.google.com/analytics/an … 1565?hl=en
         http://cutroni.com/blog/2012/02/29/unde … culations/

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6. 67

   NicheWebsite101posted 10 years ago

   In webmaster terms "bounce rate" refers to the visitor visiting one page on your site and leaving from the same page they entered in. So, in hub terms, since there is only one page & your hubs aren't linked, they will obviously leave after reading it. So, don't worry about it with hubpages, with a website it is more relevant than it is when referring to this format.

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   1. 87

      suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks a lot to everyone for all the answers. I am slowly understanding things now.

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7. 95

   incomeguruposted 10 years ago

   What really matters to me is the amount of time visitors spent reading my hub. Engage your readers by giving them well structured and informative content so that they would spend even more than two minutes reading your hub.

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      TIMETRAVELER2posted 10 years agoin reply to this

      I have had very high bounce rates since I first started writing here, yet many of my hubs are in very specific niches, rate fairly high and bring in decent traffic.  I am working now to reinforce titles and key words now that I understand them better, but so far, there's been very little downward movement on bounce rates.  Can't figure it out, folks!

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8. 87

   suzzycueposted 10 years ago

   I can't either timetraveller.

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   psycheskinnerposted 10 years ago

   Perhaps it is because you hubs do a good job so the reader doesn't have to go clicking all over hubpages looking for their answer.

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      suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks a lot psycheskinner. I really appreciate your answer.

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10. 90

    WryLiltposted 10 years ago

    Last time I checked (and for as long as I can remember), my bounce rate has been in the 90s. And I still get somewhere upwards of 2,000 hits a day. So I ignore it.

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       NateB11posted 10 years agoin reply to this

       That's good to know, because I was agonizing over bounce rate for awhile, then gave up on doing anything about it because it was too daunting for me and wasn't too sure about it. At some point, I was thinking it made little difference. It's too bad some people make drastic changes to their pages just over bounce rate.

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11. 71

    sunforgedposted 10 years ago

    The Hubpages architecture does not contain the necessary elements to properly measure and utilize bounce rate as a key metric.
    
    Best to ignore and utilize time on page, # and frequency of comments or revenue and sales as metrics
    (depending on what you care about)

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    1. 90

       WryLiltposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       +1
       
       Trying to backup via Php My Admin confused hell out of me and I gave up lolol.

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12. 60

    paradigmsearchposted 10 years ago

    A random note about sunforged. Respect him. And respect what he says.

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       WryLiltposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       ^That

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       Reality Bytesposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Absolutely, I know I do!
       
       http://sunforged.com/

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    sleepylogposted 10 years ago

    Also, within your text provide your readers with at least one link to a related page or website, this will tell Google that you are providing your readers with more quality content, but be sure that you link to a quality page or site. It's best that they exit your site by clicking on a link that takes them somewhere that is related to the topic of their search rather than just leaving your site by closing their browser window which will only tell Google that your hub didn't answer their question(s).
    
    Groups are an alternative way of doing this, because any hubs that appear in the same group as a hub currently being viewed will appear in a box at the bottom of your hub and the important thing to remember here is to make sure that all hubs in a group are related in topic.

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    1. 87

       suzzycueposted 10 years agoin reply to this

       Thanks a lot sleepylog. That makes a lot of sense. Will do!

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