Bounce Rate
-
Howdy Mozzers
Does anyone know if the 'average time on site' in Google analytics is calculated with bounce rate included?
For example if you have a 50% bounce rate and your average time on site is 2 minutes the actual time would be 4 minutes as the 50% bounce rate time is classed as 0.
I hope that is clear!
Cheers
-
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a certain page or site who only visited one page and then left the site. It's not related to the amount of time spent on a site. The amount of time spent on a site is the average time overall for time spent on the site before leaving. Hope that helps.
-
Going back a step, "Average Time On Site' in my opinion, is not a relevant statistic any more as internet connection speed increases.
With dial up connection the customer paid per minute on-line. Now with flat rates for broadband people leave pages open when they step away from their computers - I've had pages open at the office literally for days! That would really muck up anyone's stats. (That's not why I do it though)
-
There is an easy way to fix this. Create a custom advanced segment to only include visits with pageviews > 1. This will allow you to see avg time on site for all visitors excluding bounces.
-
I think it could massively confuse things if they didn't take it into account. Should those page views be deleted as well then? Do they not count as unique visitors or visitors at all?
Don;t get me wrong, I see where you are coming from, but the completely objective data is what makes GA so valuable.
-
It's a shame Google are counting this. I see their reasons though I believe. Bounces did originally want to view your site, so they are a visitor in theory. It does skew the data massively however
-
Yep good answer cheers.
Conclusion - Totally inaccurate!
-
-
There is some great info about this on this link: https://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Analytics/thread?tid=7f1a0537ed9f8fe8&hl=en
Rather than me paraphrasing and messing it up or copying/plagiarizing their answer, I'll just point you in the right direction.
-
Can you provide a link to the horses mouth?
-
Average time on site includes bounces (counted as 0 seconds) in the calculations.
See http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/01/standard-metrics-revisited-time-on-page-and-time-on-site.html
-
Agreed! Very misleading and inaccurate if it is included.
-
Haha don't worry your safe...for now!
Like all thing its should be used as a relative measure but it can be quite misleading especially for an obsessed client who doesn't know the real meaning of bounce rate, hence the reason for my question so I can explain it but the time on site is also misleading if the bounce rate is included.
-
I'm pretty sure that bounced traffic isn't calculated in the average time on site, Analytics put 0 because it can't calculate the time on site unless a visitor hit a second page within the same Analytics code (site). I'm not 100% sure but that would be really irrelevant to include bounced traffic to this metric.
-
Yeah, I'm assuming that from Googles view of analytics is post search, thus time after search...
I might be completely wrong (don't sue, kill or hurt me!), however I couldn't find a better answer from a more reputable source!
-
Hmm I guess it could be clearer and be labelled as 'avg. time on site' rather than 'time after search' which I assume your referring to?
-
I've always believed that the time on site is a global average of all visitors. Never thought to question myself until now though. Aran seems to have found the answer. Thanks
-
Hi, your question led me on an interesting trip though Google help, revisiting the basics of analytics.
Google define the Bounce Rate as:
"Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page" - Google Webmaster Help http://bit.ly/gPPNPj - This makes me think of single page sites, do they have 100% bounce rate?
Heres a look at how Google Analytics performs it calculations. http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=77234
What I took from this is that all visitor times are taken and averaged, bounce or not.
Cheers
Aran
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
-
Why few pages have more than 100% bounce rate?
Hello All, For my ecommerce site approx more than 30k products I have. In Google Analytic approx daily for few products approx 10-15 products bounce rate show 300%, 200%, 150%, 140%, 125% how? and what is the solution? Product page daily change. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | Johny123450 -
How to measure Bounce Rate via Timeout
Hi, I want to change the way Google Analytics measures my bounce rate: after 20 seconds timeout instead of next page criteria. I know that I may do it adding some content like: setTimeout(“_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ‘NoBounce’, ’20 seconds’])”,20000); But I wonder if there is some way to do it via Google Analytics configuration. Thanks in advance,
Reporting & Analytics | | Webicultors0 -
High Bounce Rate on traffic generating area of our site
Hi, Our eCommerce site currently includes a blog section known as Igloo which we have filled with unique and helpful content that is useful to a fair few people, not just customers of ours. It currently attracts a large number of visitors (more than the actual eCommerce side of the site in actual fact) organically who aren't currently customers of ours. Very few of these turn in to paying clients so it's not really a money spinner but it has worked quite well from a linkbait perspective / traffic generation perspective and undoubtedly a few of these people do end up making a purchase on the actual shopping end of our site. We're look at ways to encourage these people finding help on this free resource to take a look at our homepage and hopefully make an order but in the meantime I am worried that there may be a few downsides to us creating this content: Google may see us more as a help site than a shopping site. Since selling products is where we make our money this could ultimately be a bad thing. Our bounce rate is REALLY high (I'm talking around 94%) on the help site versus around 20% on the eCommerce site. I guess people land on the article they want, read it and then disappear. Would this bounce rate skew our entire site stats and ultimately result in decreased performance in the SERPS. I would appreciate your opinions and, in the event you do feel it may be hurting us overall perhaps some suggestions on how to mitigate the effects? Many thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | ChrisHolgate0 -
Bounce Rate Reduce day by day? how?
Hi, I have implemented enhance ecommerce with tag manager after that all working fine but bounce rate suddenly started reducing. Then again i implemented ehance ecommerce then mobile bounce rate also started reducing. As per me tag assistant showing okay. Can you please check my attached site and let me know the issue? Thanks! John
Reporting & Analytics | | varo0 -
Conversion Rate Higher Than Landing Page Visits?
Interesting to see in Google Analytics that the conversion rate is higher than landing page visits - could it be attributed to a visitor clicking the CTA button multiple times? Or perhaps there is duplicate GA code on the conversion page since we utilize both Google Analytics and HubSpot. (see attached funnel screenshot) Screen-Shot-2014-09-26-at-10.49.09-AM.png
Reporting & Analytics | | W210 -
100% Bounce Rate in my Checkout??
I am currently building a report on our bounce rates for the past few years. When I look at older data, from 2010-11 I see varying bounce rates for the checkout, which is fine. When I move to new data, 2011-12 and 2012-13 I am seeing 100% bounce rates and exit rates for my checkout. We do use a 3rd party for our checkout, Shopatron and yes we do have it set up to track. Any thoughts on why I might be seeing this high rate for my bounce rate oh and this also goes for my exit percentage as well.
Reporting & Analytics | | K2_Sports0 -
Strange bounce rate trending
what would make it jump up/down so suddenly like that? bouncerate.png
Reporting & Analytics | | adriandg0 -
Increased Bounce Rate & Dollar Index?
We use Google Analytics on our ecommerce site and we recently made several changes to an important page. Due to logistical reasons, we couldn't perform a Google web optimizer test but tracked the page's numbers in analytics from before/after the changes were made. After a week, we noticed that the bounce rate on the page went up by about 10% but the dollar index also doubled. We're trying to figure out how this could happen, since it seems kind of odd. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | airnwater0
