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
-
In Google Analytic Experiment I want to Judge Performance of Page Along with Pageviews, Bounces, Transaction etc
Hi All, For my ecommerce site for mobile site category page I have redesign the page in 2 different ways so one original page and 2 new designs. Now I want to do A/B testing with google experiment. I want to measure performance of page via pageviews, bounce rate, exit rate, conversion rate, add to basket etc. Now in objective for this experiment I can select anyone thing either Pageviews, or bounces or transaction or goal. So my query is 1) I cannot select all objective together? 2) or for same page I have to create too many experiments by selecting each objective? 3) exit rate or add to basket objective is not in experiment list so? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dsouzac0 -
Fixing Bounce Rate between Domain and Subdomain
Currently, the way our site is set up, our clients generally visit our homepage and then login through a separate page that is a subdomain, or they can read our blog/support articles that are also on separate subdomains. From my understanding, this can be counted as a bounce, and I know this sorta of site structure isn't ideal, but with our current dev resources and dependencies, fixing this isn't going to happen overnight. Regardless, what would be the easiest way to implement this fix witihn the Google Analytics code? EX: If someone visits our site at X.com, and then wants to login at portal.X.com, I don't want to count that as a bounce. Any insight is appreciated! Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | KathleenDC0 -
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 -
Does GWT "Fetch as Google Bot" feature affect crawl rate?
Hello Mozians, I have noticed many people saying using GWT fetch as GoogleBot can affect your crawl rate in future, if used regularly. Though, i am not very sure if this is true or just another stale SEO myth. As currently GWT provides a limit of 500 URLs to fetch every month. I hope my doubts will be cleared by the Moz community experts. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | pushkar630 -
How Google measure website bounce rate ?
Bounce rate is a SEO signal, but how Google measures it ? There is any explanation about this ? Does Google uses Analytics ? Maybe time between 2 clics in search results ? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Max840 -
High bounce rate on affiliate portal
Hi everyone, I own several affiliate websites and i have a really high bounce percentage(61%) and a high exit rate(78,45%). But i don't know the exact meaning of both words: At the homepage of my website people have the possibility to directly click on several banners, so they then going to another website via the affiliate-link, lots of people click these links. So i was wondering is this the reason why my exit rate en high bounce percentage is that high, or could it have another reason? Thank you,
Reporting & Analytics | | iwebdevnl1 -
High bounce rate from Google Shopping
Hi Mozzers, I'm carrying out some analysis on our eCommerce site and the bounce rate from Google Shopping is well above the site average at 60%. Our shopping feed is submitted to Google every morning so we know that images and prices are up-to-date which would obviously cause a high bounce rate. Any ideas on what might cause this? Is it normal for Google Shopping to produce a high bounce rate? Cheers guys!
Reporting & Analytics | | Confetti_Wedding0