August 2009

What is bounce rate? Answer is not always call to actions

Posted by on August 19, 2009 in Analytics

Most people may very well be aware of what bounce rate is exactly, while there are still some that may misunderstand this metric, however it’s crucial to understand this metric correctly, otherwise actions that may need to occur to improve a site based on this misunderstanding may not deliver the results you may expect.

Avinash Kaushik, in a interview on WebProNews regarding bounce rate, mentioned “I came, I saw, puked and left” as the quick lamens explanation, while the technical explanation for bounce rate according to Avinash is “Single Pageview Session” for the bounce rate metric. In essence, you will notice when going through your analytics stats that visitor bounces are in line with a visit without navigating further (no clicky clicky), unless an event is triggered during the visit. In contrast, Blogs tend to have a higher bounce rate as visitors are usually there to read an article they found in a search or link, and will leave when complete (as said, in most cases).