Is bounce rate a ranking factor?

[Erminoli]

100% wrong. If the landing page has the perfect answer then people will visit, get the info they want and leave. That doesn't mean the content is wrong, on the contrary, it means the page is perfect.

50% wrong.

The bounce rate can both be a positive and a negative signal.

Let's say, we're analyzing the bounce rate of a contact page. The page is perfect, if the user will see all relevant contact information at first sight, so that he/she can call/mail etc. A high bounce rate would rather be a positive signal.

If we're analyzing Part #1 of an article series, a high bounce rate would rather be a negative signal, because you want your readers to read the other parts as well (more pages per visit = more ad impressions = more revenue).

I am quite confused, that every second reply here is a 100% YES, 100% NO, 100% WRONG or 100% RIGHT answer. There is a huge space in between. It's not all black and white, guys.

 

[altonroot]

I am quite confused, that every second reply here is a 100% YES, 100% NO, 100% WRONG or 100% RIGHT answer. There is a huge space in between. It's not all black and white, guys.

No there is nothing in between at the moment as Google has said so many times. The current mathematics of calculation made that way. You can manipulate my bounce rate easily, that means if it is a ranking signal you can do negative SEO for my site . Google denied negative SEO so many times as well. One more simple thing, bounce rate is single page visit, it doesn't describe website bad or good. If a user visited my blog and spend 10 mins to read whole blog and left. He/she was happy because he/she spent 10 minutes to read my content. Happy users means good website as per Google's words.

 

[rizbit]

100% bounce rate with 10000 views in one day. It tells search engines that 10000 visited your website, which might have 100 pages....and they only visited that one page then left your site...

It could mean that page they visited is poorly designed and you do not link to other pages/posts or maybe do not even have a menu bar with links to other pages. OR they just saw the site took no interest and left.

So yes it does affect ranking

 

[Cherin]

The bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a particular site who navigate or bounce away after only viewing that individual webpage.

Usually, the term bounce rate has a negative connotation associated with it. People think that if a visitor only visits one page and then leaves, it is bad for business. Their logic is not that flawed, either. After all, a high bounce rate would indicate that a site does not have the high-quality, relevant content Google wants out of its top ranked sites.

 

[chapsl]

No, bounce rate is not a ranking factor. A website’s bounce rate can be manipulated with the tools available.

 

[Erminoli]

No, bounce rate is not a ranking factor. A website’s bounce rate can be manipulated with the tools available.

Isn't everything manipulatable somehow? I don't know if this is a valid argument.

 

[fisicx]

High bounce rate is not good for your website. Assume a website has large number of unique visitors landing on a specific page and don't visit other pages and leave rapidly then it makes negative effect on rankings. Higher bounce rate means there is nothing relevant to user queries.

If you read the whole thread you will realise this just isn't true.

Suppose you have a page that tells me the time in London and a load of people visit this page from New York. Bounce will probably be high but the page is 100% relevant to the enquiry.

 

[Prince_Nirala]

Great discussion here on Bounce rate is a ranking factor or not? I also think it is a ranking factor because Google check how much time a visitor spent on site or he/she perform any event or not. So, i think these factors are affected ranking.

 

[fisicx]

if it is a ranking signal it's only going to have s tiny influence. Any effect it does have could easily be dwarfed by any of the more influential factors.

Consider also that the snippets Google now displays means the searcher may get the answer they want without ever visiting your website.

 

[Prince_Nirala]

Great point, thanks, fisicx.

 

[fisicx]

According to me, High bounce rate will definitely affect the rankings.

Not necessarily. This has been discussed and explained a number of times in this thread and on many other websites.

 

[WillGraham]

i think the answer is yes. high bounce rate will make google think your site doesn't provide valuable content so it affects your rank

 

[fisicx]

i think the answer is yes. high bounce rate will make google think your site doesn't provide valuable content so it affects your rank

Did you even read the thread?

 

[altonroot]

Found really really interesting read,
https://www.en.advertisercommunity.com/t5/Articles/Understanding-the-bounce-rate/ba-p/859398

Bounced visitor means 00:00:00 time spent on website as Google analytics don't have second time stamp.
Another interesting point is, avg time on site is no where near to accuracy as time spent on last page in session and one page visit is not considered.
So if one see the quality and accuracy of data is poor, it can not, I repeat, It can not be the ranking factor. It is not even accurate data to analyse for us either.

 

[Steve Alphabet]

Wow this thread is still going
Bill Gates walks into a bar...and everyone inside becomes a millionaire – on average.
(ignore averages in web analytics, they mean nothing, especially bounce rates)

 

[Certa-Hosting]

With analytics you can see the visits from your social sites so Google will know they are yours.
Bounce rate, number of visitors, time on site, pages visited in Analytics is used by Google and the ranking factors based on what people can determine from these. They are still important to you for your business so worth improving.

 

[WoottonSEO]

Bounce rate is a confirmed ranking factor albeit a fairly light weight one (relative to links and varioustechnical onsite factors). It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Google wants to provide quality results to searchers ... and if Analytics is shows a large amount of users leaving a site immediately upon entry - then it become apparent to Google that that particular site may not be the most relevant one for the pertaining search phrase.. 10% seems like a pretty good bounce rate to aim for.

 

[Alan]

If you don't use Google Analytics, how does Google determine bounce rates? ( this is a genuine question just in case you think it is not )

Google obviously can determine click through rates.

What happens, if you set an event based on time on site and set it to a very low time, thus reducing bounce rate? Traditional bounce rate is calculated on moving to a new page, but wisdom says ( e.g. on a one page site ) that time based event is more appropriate ( ref Kaushik ) so is this an easy SEO win?

Is using Google Analytics a +ve or -ve ranking factor?

 

[Xtm_Mike]

If you don't use Google Analytics, how does Google determine bounce rates? ( this is a genuine question just in case you think it is not )

Google obviously can determine click through rates.

What happens, if you set an event based on time on site and set it to a very low time, thus reducing bounce rate? Traditional bounce rate is calculated on moving to a new page, but wisdom says ( e.g. on a one page site ) that time based event is more appropriate ( ref Kaushik ) so is this an easy SEO win?

Is using Google Analytics a +ve or -ve ranking factor?

Probably user level tracking (click through from Google, and back, or whatever...) I believe they can track a user at some level without their tools installed on a website.

It's a confusing one though, as you can't take a one size fits all approach to bounce rate. I guess they analyse the page and determine what the BR should be and then measure whether that is actually achieved?

Just a guess. I'm not too concerned about BR.

 

[Alan]

I haven't done any scientific experiments, but it is interesting, it may explain why anecdotally when running Adwords, sometime there seems to be an organic lift. As a good Adwords campaign will be attracting lower bounce visitors.

But if it was a serious factor I'm sure the SEO industry would be creating 'tricks' to lower bounce.

In my mind, from a Google perspective, a low bounce is a bad sign, as it means that Google directed them to the wrong page and then they had to go somewhere else on site.

But a high bounce rate ( by a default GA calc ) would mean that Google found the right page first time.

Whilst Google may measure 'click backs', it is definitely a different measure than bounce rate in GA => in my opinion, don't worry about it as a ranking factor - just continue to focus on is you site delivering what its users need.

 

[g_samoilov]

Hi all. Great discussion!

Yes, bounce rate IS a ranking factor. In the last week's big research publication by SEMrush bounce rate is considered to be among the strongest ranking factors. The bounce rate of the top position for the high-volume keywords is approximately 49%; for the low-volume keywords — around 51%. This could be the result of the level of trust that users have for top-ranking pages, or it could mean that the lower-ranking pages are less relevant. And though Google reps declare that all user behaviour signals are too noisy to be considered during the page qualification, a high bounce rate could indicate that the page content is irrelevant, which is bad for both users and search engine bots.

Google "SEMrush ranking factors" for details. I can't attach links yet

 

[Alan]

You should really quote the section from the report to differential it from your own opinion.

Yes, bounce rate IS a ranking factor

Is your opinion, but is not what the following section says.

In fact it almost says the opposite, that bounce rate is a sign of relevance and a sign of a higher position in the SERPs. So the logical conclusion is don't focus on bounce rate as its not a factor ( i.e. artificially manipulating the bounce rate wont work ) - but you should focus on quality / relevance and your overall position.

Caveat here - I'm not an SEO guy, I'm interested in SEO like all of us though, and I'm just interpreting the data differently.

 

[fisicx]

...a high bounce rate could indicate that the page content is irrelevant, which is bad for both users and search engine bots.

It could also indicate are very relevant page. If you want the part number of a widget and the landing page has that part number then bounce could be 100%.

I've got one page that has over 80% bounce rate but it's stuck at the #1 spot and has been for years.

 

[Alan]

It could also indicate are very relevant page.

Too true, when ever I look something up on Wikipedia I very very rarely go to another page of Wikipedia, yet it still dominates the SERPS

 

[Tin]

I've got a page that ranks very high and provides the answer to a question about highway code stopping distances, bounce rate is around 97% and it's been there for years because it answers the searchers question very quickly.

There's a clear difference between searchers that click on a link in Google then don't come back and refine their search criteria compared to searchers who do just that.

 

[justinaldridge]

Bounce rates are not a good metric. You can change and manipulate bounce rates through tag manager so that it can go up or down depending on what you deem to be a bounce.

It's generally not a good metric to make significant decisions on.

Google patents I've read around bounce rates often talk about relative bounce rates. For example, I have many travel sites with weather pages. They have bounce rates in the 90's but rank really well. Google knows that for those sorts of searches they expect high bounce rates as people are just coming to the pages to see the weather and then leaving. Mission accomplished.

One of my sites is an info type site where most of the bounce rates are between 20 - 30%. That's quite typical for these info style pages.

The key is that bounce rates are relative to the search query and cannot be looked at in isolation.

 

[g_samoilov]

I've got one page that has over 80% bounce rate but it's stuck at the #1 spot and has been for years.

So the logical conclusion is don't focus on bounce rate as its not a factor ( i.e. artificially manipulating the bounce rate wont work ) - but you should focus on quality / relevance and your overall position.

Thank you very much your replies!
I would consider bounce rate as at least an indicator and mediated influencer of your ranking. It can't be applicable to each and every website, but statistically most often it reflects the overall relevance that is in it's turn consists of many factors.

Please, correct my conclusion if I'm not right.