What does Google call a Bounce?

Google Analytics measurement of bounce rates

[ciaoenrico]

I know what a bounce rate is - this is more a question of how Google measures a bounce rate, and if anyone has any insight.

I'm reading different versions of what Google calls a bounce rate. Here are the three versions I've found:

- It is the number of people who come to a single page on a site, then immediately leave for another site.
- It is the number of people who stay on a site for 5 seconds or less (meaning, they could move to a 2nd page within that 5 seconds, but if they punch out they're still a bounce.)
- A third bit from the Google Blog says it is anyone who visits the site without taking any action.

Since people have to click on a link to get to another page, the "no action" rule would suggest anyone who comes to the site and backs out is a bounce, right? Despite what this 5 second rule says?

[marthasp6s]

I won't stress too much on the bounce rate. While this offers a nice overview of your site traffic and visitor paths, often it happens that the visitor may exit even before the analytics code has loaded fully; GA cannot measure such "visitor exits" :)

[edited by: tedster at 4:15 am (utc) on Nov. 26, 2009]

[epistable]

Could you mention where you heard about the 5 second rule you mentioned above? I've personally never heard of it. This is how I think Google Analytics would decide a visit was a bounce:
1) User visits a page on your site.
2) The Google Analytics code is fired.
3) User closes browser/leaves site before the Google Analytics code is fired again.

What would cause the code to fire? A visit to another page on your site. Or maybe you've tagged an outgoing link or javascript event with a virtual pageview ( [google.com...] ). I think the latter is what is meant by "taking an action" on the site.

[Deano1979]

Hi Guys, I am new to the world or SEO etc but my understanding of a bounce is simply when a visitor lands on your homepage and then clicks out of your site its considered a bounce.
Alternatively if a visitor lands on your home page and the clicks to an internal page this is not considered a bounce. so obviously the lower the bounce rate the more enticing your site is to the visitor as something on your home page has triggered further access to your site which is exactly what you want.

[angel1949]

hi,in my opinion,bounce is visitors who view only one page in our site.

about the versions about bounce,i think that:
1. "people who come to a single page on a site",of course,it's bounce.
2. if visitor only view one page in our site,in fact we can't count that how long times they stayed,5 seconds or 30 seconds or more.so this role is vain usual.
3. "action",is we use google analytics in a common way,it only log the pageviews,but we can use"._trackPageview()"function to send a virtual pageview to thack more user action,such as mouseClick/submit and so on. so is visitor view only one page,but have "action" we want to log,we consider this is not a bounce.

[juliocrd]

hey guys,

it is not only when someone cliks out your site, they can just close the browser. As far as I know bounce is when someone visits one of your pages and the GA script is loaded only once for that visitor.

Sorry if my English is a little bit broken, I am working on it ;)

Julio

[lokesh]

Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

for more [google.com...]