Analytics bounce rate change
-
Hi mozzers,
I have a little riddle. A few weeks ago the bounce rate on one of our website dropped 90% - from 45 % average to 5 % average. We haven't changed much in the code of the site, layout or anything else. The traffic is pretty stable too.
Anyone can guess why? Or have experienced something similar?
-
Thank you Keri. Such a speedy response!
And NOW it makes sense. So happy to have that resolved.
-
Having it there twice can cause issues. I myself have an old post with this exact issue. What happens is that the tracking code fires twice.
My simplistic understanding, which may be good enough here:
Firing only once in a session: visitor didn't go to any other page, they're a bounce.
Firing more than once in a session: visitor did something else! they didn't bounce!
IIRC, my pageviews and pages per visit were also higher. Get the duplicate GA code off, and make an annotation in Google Analytics itself of what happened, so six months or two years down the road someone can look and understand why the metrics are wonky for that time span.
-
I know this is an old thread, but it might be exactly what I need.
A client site has seen a dramatic drop in bounce rates. They were making changes to the site layout around the time bounce rates suddenly dropped. I can see that they have Google Analytics installed twice on all pages. Could that be the problem?
If yes, why would having analytics installed twice cause the bounce rate to drop dramatically. Are the other site metrics reliable?
Any help would be much appreciated!
-
Yep, if you integrated any Facebook features around that time, there's a known FB bug that causes any visitor using Internet Explorer to re-load the page with "?fb_xd_fragment=" appended to the URL.
If you're being affected by this bug, you can look at behavior across browsers (FFX and Chrome are not affected by this bug), or you can search for URLs with that query string in them. The bug has been around for over a year, but FB has assigned it a P5, so not clear on when a definitive / easy fix is forthcoming.
-
Seems like a new post click overlay.
Thanks for the "next page" tip Greg!
-
Most likely something on your page is sending multiple calls/hits to Google. I've seen this happen with Facebook Connect. Look at the Navigation Summary report for pages that have this lower bounce rate to see if the "next page" is the same page (aka a self-referral). If so, that's your issue.
If you've started tracking Ajax interactions, that will also lower your bounce rate.
-
I've seen abnormally high bounce rates coming from a non 301 redirected domain before. Did you change the direction of any of your domains?
-
Ah! have you seen this?
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Analytics/thread?tid=57d6431b146c86a2&hl=en
-
No the data are site-wide, so the bounce rate has dropped on all pages. And the GA code is not installed twice. It's very strange.
-
Something accidental where you serve two pages? Or have your analytics twice on the page?
-
Hi Elias
Thanks for checking. I checked a bunch of other websites too, with no change.
And yes, the change is similar on all traffic sources.
-
Hi Thomas,
That's very odd! I've just checked some of our sites but none of them have seen anything like that.
As you haven't changed much in terms of layout then it would appear that there is a problem with your analytics tracking.
Is the change in bounce rate constant across all traffic searches i.e. search, direct etc?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Analytic showing Bounce Rate More than 100% i.e. 2000%, 3000% Bounces for Many Pages
Hello Guys, Google Analytic showing Bounce Rate More than 100% i.e. 2000%, 3000% etc for Many Pages. Can anyone let me know what is the issue? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dsouzac0 -
Track subdomains in the same analytics property/view
Hello to everyone, this is my first question (kind of a newbie here :-D). I have a website that spans over 4 subdomains + the main domain and I'd like to have a place where I can see the total page views, events and goal completions. Main domain is langhe.net, and subdomains are eventi.langhe.net, servizi.langhe.net, shop.langhe.net, about.langhe.net. The website is based on wordpress and I'm using google analytics for wordpress by yoast as analytics plugin. The configuration of the plugin is as follows: all the website have the same UA-XXXXXXXX code The Subdomain Traking field (setDomainName) is filled with .langhe.net Cross-Domain tracking is enabled Cross-Domain Primary Domain (setDomainName) is langhe.net Cross-Domain Tracking, Other Domains field is filled with: about.langhe.net, eventi.langhe.net, servizi.langhe.net, shop.langhe.net. In the GA property I've created an Advanced Custom Filter configured this way: Field A -> Extract A = hostname (.*) Field B -> Extract B = request URI (.*) Output To -> Constructor = request URI $A1$B1 Field A Required: yes Field B Required: No Override Output Field: yes Case Sensitive: no I was wondering it this is the best way of doing it, or if there are other "best practice" ways to obtain what I'm looking for (for example with this configuration it's become quite difficult to separate the traffic sources for each website). Thank you in advance 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | Enrico_Cassinelli
Cheers!0 -
Can underscore blanks trigger home page bounce rates
Buongiorno from 8 degrees C Wetherby UK 🙂 On this site the scrolling banner has been hyperlinked with underscore blank causing new pages to open when a user clicks on a banner. My question is please... "If a user clicks on a banner will Google measure this as a home page bounce" ( I dont think it will i just want to be 100% sure) Click here for illustration:
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing
http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc53/zymurgy_bucket/home-page-sw-banner_zps0fda6318.jpg Grazie Tanto,
David0 -
Google Analytics Goals are not recording
Hello! I've set up Goals within Google Analytics and they aren't registering. I'm wondering if someone can review what I've set up to see if I've entered something wrong. I'm trying to track enrollments. Here's the site info: Enroll URL: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/individuals/enroll-careplus/ Upon completion, the user goes to a Thank You page and our CMS generates a trailing URL parameter. For example: http://www.careplusdentalplans.com/index.php/individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/#123456789 My Goal info in GA: Goal URL: /individuals/enroll-careplus-thank-you/
Reporting & Analytics | | SmileMoreSEO
Match Type: Head Match (to disregard trailing URL parameter)
Goal Funnel: Step 1: /individuals/enroll-careplus/ I'm curious if the problem lies in either: The URL: Notice how the URL adds /index.php/ on the thank you page. In that case, should I enter the full URL in the Goal instead of the truncated URL? The Funnel: Is it necessary to show the initial Enroll page or if I'll see that in the Flow Visualization regardless? Thanks in advance for helping me out. Erik0 -
Re-branding with Google Analytics
GM Mozzers, I apologize in advance if my description of this issue is confusing, but I'm doing my best here. Anyway, due to legal reasons, one of the publications I manage was forced to change their name. We set-up a 301 redirect from the previous domain and have also set-up an analytics profile for the new domain, however, as it stands, visits to the old domain outnumber those to the new domain 12:1. Is there anyway to set-up my analytics profile to the new URL so that this traffic is being attributed to the new domain and the new site, since, after all, it is a redirect. I hope that I explained this sufficiently. Any and all insight will be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | NiallSmith0 -
Analytics Filter for URL's
Hi Fellow Mozzers I am setting my analytics and need to set some filters and need some help. I have a number of Local Sites i need to include and can't find how to do it. some of the the paths are local.imsm.com/new-york/ local.imsm.com/chicago/ local.imsm.com/long-beach/ local.imsm.com/atlanta/ each of the local URL's are /name/ any help would be great
Reporting & Analytics | | imsmlouis0 -
Analytics URL Tagging
For some reason I can't get Google Analytics to pick up my URL tags, am I doing something wrong? http://www.example.com/?utm_source=carscom&utm_campaign=3rdparty&utm_medium=referral
Reporting & Analytics | | kylesuss0 -
Low bounce rate; need help troubleshooting code
I've had an outside developer do a bunch of custom work in Google Analytics to get my site to integrate with Foxycart and accurately report sales in the ecommerce section. With a foxycart upgrade came more GA tweaking, and now my bounce rate is at 1-2%. I know this isn't right, and suspecting there is something triggering GA a second time, causing a second page load, or something. Could someone that loves code look at http://www.strikemodels.com/ and tell me if they can easily spot what's obliterating the accuracy of my bounce rate calculations? Or do I need to go back to my dev and up the can of GA worms to troubleshoot things? As you can tell by the code, I'm running the latest version of WP with a few plugins, Thesis 1.8, and on Apache.
Reporting & Analytics | | KeriMorgret0