- Bounce rate
Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate) [ [http://www.hmtweb.com/blog/2007/08/bounce-rate-and-exit-rate-what-is.html HMTWeb.com "Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate"] ] is a term used in web site traffic analysis. It essentially represents the average percentage of initial visitors to a site who "bounce" away to a different site, rather than continue on to other pages within the same site.
Definition
A bounce occurs when a web site visitor leaves a page or a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs. There is no industry-standard minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave in order for a bounce to occur. Rather, this is determined by the session timeout of the analytics tracking software.
A visitor can bounce by:
* Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
* Closing an open window or tab
* Typing a newURL
* Clicking the "Back" button to leave the site
* Session timeoutA commonly used session timeout value is 30 minutes [ cite journal|title=Data Preparation for Mining World Wide Web Browsing Patterns|journal=Journal of Knowledge and Information System|date=1999|first=R.|last=Cooley|coauthors=B. Mobasher, J. Srivastava|volume=1|issue=1|pages=5-32|id= doi|10.1.1.33.2792|url=http://www.cs.umn.edu/research/websift/papers/kais99.ps |format=|accessdate=2008-08-25 ] . In this case, if a visitor views a page, doesn't look at another page, and leaves his browser idle for longer than 30 minutes, they will register as a bounce. If the visitor continues to navigate after this delay, a new session will occur.
The Bounce Rate for a single page is the number of visitors who enter the site at a page and leave within the specified timeout period without viewing another page, divided by the total number of visitors who entered the site at that page. In contrast, the Bounce Rate for a web site is the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of a web site per session divided by the total number of web site visits.
Usage
Bounce rates can be used to help determine the effectiveness or performance of an entry page. An entry page with a low bounce rate means that the page effectively causes visitors to view more pages and continue on deeper into the web site. [http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/text/38069.html.]
Google.com analytics specialist Avinash Kaushik has stated:"It is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying." [ [http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2007/05/excellent-analytics-tip-11-measure-effectiveness-of-your-web-pages.html Excellent Analytics Tip #11: Measure Effectiveness Of Your Web Pages | Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik ] ]
Caveats
While bounce rate is a useful tool for e-commerce sites, it is of more questionable value for sites such as news sites, where many visitors go to scan headlines and can find what they want immediately on the entry page. Indeed, for any kind of informational site, sophisticated users are likely to bookmark a page within the site, which then becomes their personal entry page, check it (e.g., for sports scores, the price of pork bellies, or whatever), then bounce right off. The page will have done its job, but might still have a bounce rate above 80%, bringing up the average for the whole site. For such sites, metrics such as returning visitors vs. new visitors might be more informative.
ee also
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Web analytics References
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