Do you bounce?

So this post is about bounce rates. Do you speak the old blogger lingo regarding bouncing? Well no, neither did I. So I did what all good girls of this generation do, especially us blogger ones, and I googled it. And there is what is said…

A bounce occurs when a web site visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs. There is no industry-standard minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave in order for a bounce to occur. Rather, this is determined by the session timeout of the analytics tracking software.

A visitor can bounce by:

  • Clicking on a link to a page on a different web site
  • Closing an open window or tab
  • Typing a new URL
  • Clicking the “Back” button to leave the site

Session time out – A commonly used session time out value is 30 minutes[2]. In this case, if a visitor views a page, doesn’t look at another page, and leaves his browser idle for longer than 30 minutes, they will register as a bounce. If the visitor continues to navigate after this delay, a new session will occur.

The Bounce Rate for a single page is the number of visitors who enter the site at a page and leave within the specified timeout period without viewing another page, divided by the total number of visitors who entered the site at that page. In contrast, the Bounce Rate for a web site is the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of a web site per session divided by the total number of web site visits.


And now can I tell you, I used to have a pretty good bounce rate for a blogger who gives it all away up front (as in, I don’t use read more links on articles really). I sat around 50 – 55% And the other day while browsing my analytics’s I noticed it had grown to over 60% And was like, uh ok! What gives. How does that even happen. Do you know? 

So tell me, what gives? 

5 responses to “Do you bounce?”

  1. No idea love. This blogging bizzo has me totally and utterly confused….I suspect I need to put my head back in the sand……

  2. hmmm, so what about the readers that read each post at a time? I'm a speedreader with an attention span of a gnat so I bet I'm bouncing all over the place.Does it reflect those that might save up to read every week or so, then spend time catching up?Does that make ANY sense?

  3. Ok. I'm completely confused…So a high bounce rate is good? As in, the reader stuck around to read more than one post? Because Google implies that a low bounce rate is good. I just don't get it. Perhaps I'll go and stick my head in the sand with Lucy :-)

  4. Katiegirl – You're right, low is good. Mine went up from a sorta reasonable level. Lulu – Yeah probably… Lol. Am attempting to learn all this bouncey/ bloggy stuff.

  5. Yeah, I am not really sure either. Sometimes I think I do and sometimes I think I don't. I am so confused.

Leave a comment