What is bounce rate?

Bounce rate

Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave without taking any action. No clicks, no scrolling, no second page. They arrived, glanced, and disappeared.

In Google Analytics 4, a bounce is any session lasting under 10 seconds that doesn't trigger a conversion event or include a second pageview. The metric applies to both websites and email campaigns, though the specifics differ slightly between the two.

Website bounce rate vs. email bounce rate

These two metrics share a name but measure completely different things.

Website bounce rate tracks visitor engagement. When someone lands on your homepage and leaves without clicking anything, that's a bounce. It signals that the page didn't give them a reason to stay.

Email bounce rate tracks deliverability. When an email can't reach the recipient's inbox, it bounces back. A bounced email never gets seen at all.

Website bounces happen after someone arrives. Email bounces happen before your message even lands.

What causes high bounce rates

Several factors drive visitors away before they engage:

• Slow load times. Pages that take more than a few seconds to load lose visitors fast.
• Misleading titles or descriptions. When the content doesn't match what the search result promised, people leave.
• Poor mobile experience. Tiny text, broken layouts, and hard-to-tap buttons frustrate mobile users.
• Confusing navigation. If visitors can't figure out where to go next, they won't stick around to guess.
• Intrusive pop-ups. Aggressive overlays that block content push people toward the back button.
• Content that misses the mark. Sometimes the page simply doesn't answer the question the visitor came with.

What's a good bounce rate?

It depends entirely on the page type and your goals.

Blog posts and informational content often see bounce rates between 65% and 90%. That's not necessarily bad. Someone searching "what is bounce rate" might read your definition, get their answer, and leave satisfied.

Ecommerce product pages typically aim for 20% to 45%. You want shoppers browsing, adding items to carts, and exploring related products.

Landing pages designed for a single action can have high bounce rates by design. If someone fills out a form and leaves, that's a conversion, not a failure.

The real question isn't whether your bounce rate is "good." It's whether visitors are doing what you built the page for.

How to reduce bounce rate

Start with the pages that matter most to your business goals.

1. Speed up load times. Compress images, minimize code, and consider a content delivery network.
2. Match content to intent. Make sure your page delivers exactly what your title and meta description promise.
3. Improve readability. Break up walls of text with headers, bullet points, and white space.
4. Add clear next steps. Internal links, related content suggestions, and obvious calls to action give visitors somewhere to go.
5. Fix mobile issues. Test your pages on actual phones. What looks fine on desktop might be unusable on a small screen.
6. Remove friction. Audit pop-ups, autoplay videos, and anything else that interrupts the experience.

Bounce rate vs. exit rate

Exit rate measures where people leave your site, regardless of how many pages they visited first. Bounce rate only counts single-page sessions.

If someone reads three blog posts and then leaves from the third one, that increases the exit rate for that page but doesn't count as a bounce. The visitor engaged with multiple pages before leaving.

Both metrics matter, but they answer different questions. Bounce rate tells you about first impressions. Exit rate reveals where journeys end.

FAQs

Is a high bounce rate always bad?
Not necessarily. A FAQ page or dictionary entry might have a high bounce rate because visitors found their answer quickly. Context matters more than the number itself.

Does bounce rate affect SEO?
Google hasn't confirmed bounce rate as a direct ranking factor. However, the signals that cause high bounce rates, such as slow pages or irrelevant content, can hurt your search performance.

How do I find my bounce rate in Google Analytics 4?
Go to Reports, then Engagement, then Pages and screens. You may need to customize the report to add bounce rate as a visible metric.

What's the difference between website and email bounce rate?
Website bounce rate measures visitor engagement. Email bounce rate measures deliverability, tracking messages that never reached the inbox.

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