Is high bounce rate bad for SEO?

Beverly Level X³

August 14, 2012, 1:02 pm

21

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Is high bounce rate bad for SEO?

There are a number of ways a person can bounce from a site.

Here are some examples.

She closed her browser window
She closed her browser tab
She entered a new URL in the browser
She used the browser search bar and displayed results “over” your site’s content
She went ‘Back’ either using the back button on the browser or shortcut key (usually Alt + Left Arrow)
She clicked on an external link from your site (e.g. ad, blogroll, commentluv, etc)

As for whether or not Google/MSN or other search engines use all these types of bounces when considering the relevance of the page, only they can say.

For sure, MSN considers at least one type of bounce where the person makes a search and then clicks through on a link and then quickly clicks back (or uses alt+left arrow key) to search listings.

According to this one particular source, Google does not use bounce rate as a ranking factor.

http://www.webpronews.com/google-u...nce-rate-2012-07

Does that mean you shouldn't be concerned with bounce rate? Well if your aim is to only get visitors to your site (even for a few seconds), then it shouldn't matter. But if you actually want those same people to read your recently posted articles, comment and click on ads, then you might want to work on making pages more relevant to decrease bounce rate.

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Tommy Matalino

I already read before that Google doesn't use bounce rate. But there are experts that says having a high bounce rate could affect the SERPS or SEO of your site. Especially on how relevant your site to the search keywords.

14 years ago

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Corzhens

This is my question about those experts. Pardon me for saying this but I have been seeing so many speculations and false information in the internet about SEO. Even the so called Google updates for banning sites are prevalent issues. Anyway the bounce rate is the time that a user spends on the web page. So what has that got to do with the SEO if a user reads a web page for 1 hour versus a web page that is read for 1 minute?

7 years ago

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Beverly

Also some things that affect bounce rate include links to other sites, surveys, auto-play video/music and pop ups. All these might cause a visitor to suddenly want to leave the page.

14 years ago

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Tommy Matalino

Also some things that affect bounce rate include links to other sites, surveys, auto-play video/music and pop ups. All these might cause a visitor to suddenly want to leave the page.

How about closing the window? Can that be considered as a "bounce"?

14 years ago

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Beverly

How about closing the window? Can that be considered as a "bounce"?

Yeah, i've heard that it can be. Also, when a person clicks on an ad or link quickly after hitting the page, that can be considered a bounce. But from what i know, the only bounces that MSN counts are the ones where they click back to search results quickly as that is a prime indicator the person didn't find what they wanted.

14 years ago

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Tommy Matalino

Yeah, i've heard that it can be. Also, when a person clicks on an ad or link quickly after hitting the page, that can be considered a bounce.

So it's a bounce... Could bounce rate be counted if you move on a different page of the site after reaching the homepage?

14 years ago

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robertman11

But bounce rate can only be bad for a site if the search engines knows the rate, no?

14 years ago

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edword84

Having a high bounce rate is not good for any Web site. It shows the percentage of visitors who enter the site and leave the site rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site.

14 years ago

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Beverly

So it's a bounce... Could bounce rate be counted if you move on a different page of the site after reaching the homepage?

Probably not a page on the same site, but if the person clicked on a link and left the site very quickly, that might be considered a bounce.

14 years ago

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fivebucksdeals

I am not sure about you.

14 years ago

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Tommy Matalino

Probably not a page on the same site, but if the person clicked on a link and left the site very quickly, that might be considered a bounce.

Do you have any idea how many seconds do one need to view the site to prevent a "bounce"?

14 years ago

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Beverly

Do you have any idea how many seconds do one need to view the site to prevent a "bounce"?

One site claims that Google sees bounce rate as the percentage of visitors that visit just one page on a site. So maybe time is not included. Though other search engines often use a time measurement, it's somewhere around five seconds. This might not be standard for all.

14 years ago

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Tommy Matalino

So these people claim that Google only count bounce rate if the visitor only visited one page and went away?
But it seems 5 seconds is quite fast...

14 years ago

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ppcmsvramesh

As of your question we can not give solution because how their algorithm works no one dont know the real fact about google algorithm. As of my experience I saw many google analytic account. There were good search ranking but when comparing bounce rate or any other source are worst..

11 years ago

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network123bit

Well I used to run a site. Over two years ago someone wanted me to publish an article on it but requested my Google Analytics details. After he saw them he said he was no longer interested in having an article on the site because the bounce rate was higher than what they would have liked.

11 years ago

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asianmartt

At the point when is a high bob rate something you don't have to stress over? While every calculation bundle has a marginally distinctive specialized meaning of skip rate, a bob implies that a man went to the site, saw one page, and left. Notwithstanding, accepting this is dependably a "terrible thing" is somewhat gullible. In some cases the page answers a man's inquiry, takes care of their issue, or gives them the data they needed. It makes such a decent showing, to the point that clients don't have to do whatever else.

11 years ago

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agarwalaman404

Bounce rate is the fraction of people who landed on a page and immediately left. So, high bounce rate is really bad for SEO.

11 years ago

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johnniewalk

Off course if your website bounce rate is high then it is harmful for your rankings

11 years ago

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vinaya

I believe Google does not care about bounce rate. However, having high bounce rate is detrimental to your website. The high bounce rate means there is no or little engagement on your website., Engagement is the key to earn revenue from your website. The visitors must click your ads or buy products from your website in order to generate revenue for you.

8 years ago

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Corzhens

My question with the bounce rate is this – how will the website know that the user had left the website? I am wondering about that when I had learned about bounce rate in one discussion in this forum. If you click on the home page and after 3 seconds you click on the menu to display another page and then another page after 4 seconds that has a high bounce rate which is not good because the user has been leaving the page in favor of another page. But what if the user let the page remain displayed but is on another tab that he was working on another website, what is the bounce rate of the first website?

8 years ago

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vinaya

Keeping the website open for a long time without engaging on the website content will give you high bounce rate. You can check the bounce rate on google analytics account f you have added your website on analytics. You can also have analytics plugin on your website to see the bounce rate.
If you are on one page for a few seconds, and then go to another page and than go to another page after a few second, you are interacting on the website (because you are engaging with the content), your bounce rate will not increase.

8 years ago

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