Analytics Across Sub Domains

Measuring bounce rate accurately

[flanok]

I have a terrible bounce rate due to having a separate tracking code on several sub domains, where visitors cross between them.

I thought the solution was to simply ensure each sub-domains has the same tracing code and is treat as one website.

But I have read several blog posts that complicate the issue, stating, this still gives false information.

So for someone without an analytical mind,

Can someone just clarify, that one code will show a true bounce rate?

Across all

At this time, I don;t need anything other data.

[engine]

Oh, that's be my worst nightmare. I won't ask why, but I think i'd have trouble doing that. Unless, somebody else knows different.

[MikeNoLastName]

Hi flanok,
I'm going through exactly the same thing this very week. We had a bounce rate around 60 and our short-term target was <50%. We KNOW for a fact that our rate should be considerably lower than that, but can't seem to get GA to agree. Over the last 3 months it has maintained a daily average of 62% */- 4%. We DID find a number of critical pages which were still using the older tracking code and replaced the code on them with the latest as the tag tool in Chrome was claiming they were generating multiple sessions (some of them not ALL of them oddly) (of course it is also reporting errors on some pages obviously generated by their own Adsense code, but that's another topic). If you don't have the Chrome Tag tool, it can come in handy, if for nothing else than the record session function and the report of same and playback. We, like you, ALSO have a range of pages which are on a separate domain which is actually PART of the main domain, and which we really don't want to move because they rank quite well on the search engines, where they are now. So, like you we copied the same tracking code onto them as one the main domain. We DID originally create a channel for the secondary domain and got a UA code with -2 instead of -1 at the end which may have some impact here, but I'm not sure that we ever actually used it and there are no traces of any links for it.. We were also missing any tracking code at all on a few busy pages, but these should not account for much, but we copied the code there anyway. We made no significant changes to the whole rest of the site. The Tag tracking tool clearly shows the transition form one domain to another maintaining session integrity.

Well, after all that and tracking for a couple days, our bounce rate is now around 75%!

Accuracy is apparently NOT their high-point particularly across domains even though their own doc claims it should work.