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
-
Does Google need Analytics installed to create metrics?
Hi Mozers, Does Google know time on site, number of page visits, bounce rate, etc. even if Google Analytics is NOT installed? Does it measure all that stuff anyway, and if you install the GA code on your site, that is so that YOU can see those metrics? OR can Google only see those metrics if you install GA on your site? Thanks! Jane
Reporting & Analytics | | CalamityJane771 -
Block IP from analytics
How can I block an ip from analytics? basically so I do not see test orders from a certain ip in the sales performance section? Thanks for any help.
Reporting & Analytics | | tdigital0 -
Irrelevant page with high bounce rate
I have a page on my site, www.waikoloavacationrentals.com/kolea-rentals/floor-plans, that gets me roughly 17% of my traffic. That being said it is not really relevant traffic because it comes from the search term "floor plans", which really has nothing to do with Hawaii vacation rentals, which is what I do. My question is does Google know how to figure that out when they are looking at my stats or is there a way to let google know that that page probably should not show up for that search phrase? On the positive, they are nice floor plans and if someone is searching for ideas for floor plans and see one of them in google images then it probably could help them, but it really is not relevant to my business. It has a 80% bounce rate, but does have an average time on page of 1.5 minutes, which is a fair amount for what is there.
Reporting & Analytics | | RobDalton0 -
Transferring of analytic data
Hey SEOMoz community, Question, we just purchased a business and while we didn't keep their website content we acquired their URLs and will be rebuilding the site. We've asked for and been denied any historical analytic data e.g. they wont transfer admin rights over to us. Is there anyway to access historical data without being made an admin? or do we start from ground zero. One of the reasons we're being given for not being allowed access is that "Google analytics and the associated keywords are the vendor's intellectual property" - given that we brought the brand doesn't that IP transfer over to us anyways? Thanks, PC
Reporting & Analytics | | PC-QSG
(Long time forum stalker, first time poster)0 -
Set up Google Analytics by product category
Does anyone know if it's possible to set up Google Analytics data by product category? We sell roughly twenty product categories on our ecommerce site. We can look at our analytics performance for the site overall and drill down to specific pages, but what we really want to see is our performance by product category. Our product categories can include up to 5000 products. Any pointers on how to do this?
Reporting & Analytics | | ironpac0 -
Disclaimer about using Google Analytic?
When using GA on my Website do I need to have a disclaimer that 'We are using Google Analtyic to Track information'?
Reporting & Analytics | | daracreative0 -
Do Google Analytics filters affect link building?
We recently made a few link wheels for specific product pages. We've been having great results with all of the wheels except for one. The one we are having issues with is the only link that we were using a Google Analytics filter on; it looks like this http://domain.com/page.htm?zSource=Specific Keyword%tracking My question is does Google ignore links that are obviously utilizing their analyitcs custom filters? We're doing some more testing to try to find out if it truly is the link or if the wheel is a bad one. There are so many things that could go wrong but with so many of our link wheels working well, I wonder if the filters are what is causing such results.
Reporting & Analytics | | MichealGooden0 -
What analytics program is best for a small business?
Of course Google analytics is good. I tried getclicky.com. Are there any other analytics programs that are better that are also affordable? What do you use?
Reporting & Analytics | | DallasBonsai0