Bounce Rates

[shpangle]

Hi,

Just a couple of quick questions, can Google calculate bounce rates for a website page if the user hasn't installed the Analytics code?

Do you think Google uses Bounce rates to as an input to determine the ranking of a page?

Thanks

Mick

 

[WorldofBooks]

One argument you hear all the time is that Google can’t possibly use something like bounce rate as a ranking signal, because bounce rate is very site-dependent and unreliable by itself. I hear it so often that I wanted to take a moment to say that I don’t buy this argument, for one simple reason. ANY ranking signal, by itself, is unreliable. I don’t know a single SEO who would argue that TITLE tags don’t matter, for example, and yet TITLE tags are incredibly easy to manipulate.

On-page factors in general can be spammed – that’s why Google added links to the mix. Links can be spammed – that’s why they’re adding social metrics and user metrics. With over 200 rankings factors (Bing claims over 1,000), no single factor has to be perfect.

Your goal should be that when a visitor lands on your page, the content answers all of their needs, encouraging their next action to remain with you. If your content does not encourage them to remain with you, they will leave. The search engines can get a sense of this by watching the dwell time. The time between when a user clicks on our search result and when they come back from your website tells a potential story. A minute or two is good as it can easily indicate the visitor consumed your content. Less than a couple of seconds can be viewed as a poor result.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-2-user-metrics-that-matter-for-seo

 

[NorthernShawn]

I couldn't agree more with WorldofBooks.

If I were Google, I would definitely be trying to use bounce rate as a factor.

Although it's not perfect, they can get a good estimate of bounce rate by looking at how many people click on other search results after visiting your page and how long the gap is between clicking on the link for your page and clicking on another search result.

 

[Ecler]

Hi

As mentioned in the 2 posts above, Google uses a wide range of things in its algorithm and they're more and more getting into site performance (page speed/load time, click throughs...) so you can safely assume that some form of bounce rate, even without Analytics will be or is already part of the algorithm. If you look at paid search for example, the quality score is based on a lot of on page performance factors.
The issue is that google does what google wants and it is up to SEO experts to try and keep up with changes.
Bounce rate is an essential KPI for any website, so it should always be looked at from a business standpoint, no matter whether it influences rankings or not.

Etienne

 

[StokedSEO]

Hi,

Just a couple of quick questions, can Google calculate bounce rates for a website page if the user hasn't installed the Analytics code?

If you skip right back to the SERPS then sure they can

Do you think Google uses Bounce rates to as an input to determine the ranking of a page?

Thanks

Mick

I'm not sure that they do, Matt Cutts said last year that to his knowledge bounce rate wasn't a ranking factor. The thing is, for some sites a bounce means the user got what they wanted right away and left, a bounce isn't always a negative thing.

 

[Websitehandyman]

google take no account of bounce rate in my opinion.

The only reason for them saying anything about site performance is so those sites it struggles with itself hear and maybe do something to help their robot out.

In fact for some people the biggest factor in increasing performance would be to removed all the google code from their site.

Lets face it if a google searcher is waiting for a site to load they are more likely to go back to google and Ca-Ching ! on an ad.

 

[Webtistic]

User metrics and engagement are becoming more and more influential as ranking factors, and it makes absolute sense that the engines utilise any data that can be gleamed from user behaviour (where possible, and without the need to use analytics data).

Here is an interesting article from SEOMoz on this very subject:

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-2-user-metrics-that-matter-for-seo

This all reinforces the need for webmasters to ensure that their site works from a user perspective (using ongoing conversion/user optimisation methods).

 

[sunder0786]

left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy.

 

[Ali-v-8]

Yes Google can.

 

[Phoenix Driving]

Just looked at our bounce rate and its 2.66, pleased with that but what's the average ?

 

[Ali-v-8]

!0% is acceptable - 2.66 is amazing

Just looked at our bounce rate and its 2.66, pleased with that but what's the average ?

 

[fahimk123]

i think google does look and counts the bounce rate with loading time and other factors but these are minor factors and yes google can calculate bounce rate even if you don't have google analytic installed

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Here's my opinion on the topic:

Google cannot see bounce rate - if someone lands on my site and then bounces off to someone elses site, Google can't see that any more than I can see what Google's bounce rate it.

However; if someone googles the phrase "blue widgets" and finds my blog in the results, but then very quickly returns to Google to try either a different result for that search or a different search - Google can certainly use that info.

This isn't bounce rate, but I'm sure you will agree it is an approximation of bounce rate (SEO moz refer to it is dwell time). More to the point it gives Google an idea of whether that user found what they needed - if they went and tried another result for the same search, that probably suggests that they didn't. (not always, but generally speaking).

In response to another point raised:

Yes, some types of sites have a higher bounce rate than others (which will mean a lower dwell time), but what matters is the relative performance compared to other sites in a niche.

So if I am ranking for "blue widgets" and the site below me in the SERPS has a much better dwell time than I do - Google might well see that as a sign that the other site is a better match for that particular query.

The fact that some website in an entirely different niche has a much better dwell time than both of us is entirely irrelevant.

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Dwell time isn't something that's easy to work out right now, but if you have a high bounce rate and a low time spent on site - you can bet that competitors in your niche are outperforming you. Working to improve those scores is only ever going to be a good thing.