SEO glossary · B

Bounce Rate

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is the share of visits in which the visitor leaves without engaging further with the site. Exactly what counts as a bounce depends on the analytics tool.

Bounce rate in Google Analytics 4

In Google Analytics 4, bounce rate is the percentage of sessions that were not engaged. A session is engaged if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, includes a key event (conversion) or includes at least two page views, so bounce rate is simply the opposite of engagement rate.

In the old Universal Analytics, a bounce was any single-page visit, even if the visitor read the page for ten minutes.

Is a high bounce rate bad?

Not always. A visitor who finds your phone number and calls, or reads one answer and leaves satisfied, may count as a bounce. Judge bounce rate by page type and goal, and compare similar pages rather than chasing a general benchmark.

How to lower it

  • Match the page to what the ad or search result promised.
  • Make the page load fast, especially on mobile.
  • Show the main answer or offer straight away.
  • Offer a clear next step and useful internal links.

Bounce rate is an analytics metric. Google has said it doesn’t use your analytics data to rank your pages.

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