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Do you feel that a relationship exists between your bounce rate and your position in Google search results? Well, all indications point to a close relationship existing between the two. It has now been confirmed that Google considers the time spent by a visitor on a website as a measure of its importance and relevance. A back button click immediately after landing on your site by a visitor is considered by Google as disinterest for your site and therefore a bad search result!
What is Bounce Rate?
According to the Google Analytics documentation “Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page). Bounce rate is a measure of visit quality and a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance (landing) pages aren’t relevant to your visitors." If your webpage has a high bounce rate for a search term then Google might lower your rankings and devalue your site for that search term
In simple terms, the bounce rate of your website is then the percentage of visitors who just see only one page of your site and leave immediately. It is an indication of the quality of traffic coming to your site. It is a judgment being passed by a visitor regarding the quality and usefulness of your website.
But on a positive note, it is also a way to help pin point pages that need improvements and where remedial actions need to be taken.
The conclusion that Google does factor in the bounce rate also as a part of its search algorithm has been arrived at after several tests by webmasters on their pages. Their findings suggest that Google indeed considers the bounce rate as an indicator of a site’s importance.
How to make your site search engine ready
As a high bounce rate is considered a measure of your site’s ineffectiveness, you need to improve the content and usability of your sites pages. If you can lower your bounce rate marginally with improved content and usability, you will witness a substantial improvement in conversion rates and attract more visitors through search engines. After all, Google and all other search engines intent is to provide the visitors with as accurate and relevant information as possible. If the visitors themselves ignore your site, the search engines will take note of it and obviously lower your site’s rankings.
There is therefore a need to reduce the bounce rate and improve conversion. But for this, the process should start from the website planning process itself and should be carried through the development & marketing stage. A reduced bounce rate also means increased site conversions and is a sign of online success for which every site owner should strive for.
So what are you waiting for? Time to start making those sites more conversion friendly — apparently site design does matter!
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17 Responses to “How Bounce Rates Effect Your Website Rankings”
1) non relevant Content
2) Bad Design
3) Ranking for non-relevant keywords
any other factors that increase bounce rate?
Elan
December 26th, 2008 at 6:25 am
Google surely places some weight on bounce rates. This is evident from the GA definition itself. The definition makes it amply clear that Google thinks web pages with a high bounce rate aren’t relevant to website visitors. If your web pages have a high bounce rate for a search term, Google might lower the rankings of your website for that search term.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Good article about bounce rates! Google has the ability to collect bounce rate from tools like Google toolbar and Google Analytics. In addition, Google can measure the time between visits to their search engine by the same user and they can use the Google Chrome browser to measure the complete surfing behavior of users. Now that’s a lot of information that Google is fed with and which is used to good effect while ranking sites for a particular keyword.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Very nice article. Google values our site based on these bounce rates, lesser the bounce rate greater will be the value of our sites in the eyes of Google. Yes, what you said is right, improving our site’s user experience by user friendly and conversion friendly site design is most important in this regard.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Yes- bounce rate could very well be taken as a measure of the quality and usefulness of a website. After all, a visitor is searching for information on something and if he finds it in the website he will stick with it and if not he will leave as quickly as he came in. Search engines have done the right thing and cannot be faulted for considering bounce rate also as a yardstick in their ranking algorithms.
December 28th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
Yes, as you said at the end site design matters. I would even say it is the key to lower bounce rates and gain higher rankings. Many a times I’ve been bounced out of sites due to the sheer horror they’ve given me when I landed on their homepage. I just couldn’t figure out where to look and whither to go next. Of course the one action they prompted was to click the back button on the browser!
December 28th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
An absolutely amazing article on the bounce rate. Thanks for bringing it into the SEO picture, because it really does help with SEO!
Robert
December 29th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Search engines may consider increased bounce rates as negative votes by visitors and may devalue your site accordingly. If incoming links reflect approval and site value in the eyes of a visitor, a bounce rate does just the opposite. In simple terms it could be termed as democracy at work and bounce rate merely means that you are not in the good books of a visitor. If visitors do not want you, search engines know what ratings you deserve.
December 29th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
We cannot compromise with the demands visitors seek from websites. The only way to reduce bounce rate is by supplying the visitors needs. Don’t forget that the first impression lasts long, – really long.
Good and informative post.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Lowering the bounce rate is a major area of concern for every internet business. Internet surfers keep on searching for weighty and usable content throughout the thousands of online sites. And when they land on a page, without wasting any time, they look for their expected information, if not quits fast. In short, surfers are always in hunt for an exhaustive web page to benefit from. By meeting their informative requirements, we can reduce bounce rates.
December 29th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
In my experience, bad content always increases a site’s bounce rate. So as far as possible try best to provide the pages with reader friendly content and useful information that will instigate them to go inside and search for more.
Yes a reduced bounce rate is great way of boosting conversion rates.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
One thing not to forget is even good content can result in a high bounce rate. On blogs for example articles can take a long time to read. After a visitor reads the content they are mentally exhausted from reading and leave the site. In this case you must weigh the pros and cons. High bounce rate isn’t that bad if the visitor stayed for 30 minutes reading.
Robert
December 31st, 2008 at 10:23 pm
[...] already know the importance dealing the most relevant content to website visitors to improve your bounce rate. When I land on the Super Bowl 43 page I can see images of the 2 teams that are playing [...]
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January 26th, 2009 at 1:31 am
Nice one Cyriac, i was going to blog about this topic, thanks for stealing it
Instead I will focus on other aspects of Bounce Rate
Good article
C-Note
January 27th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
Nice article, I think, If you want to decreased your website bounce rate then write New, Unique, Informative and properly keyword rich text and updates or add quality content frequently (weekly,monthly basis).
Thanks for sharing this informative post.
Best regards,
Fanatical About Support
May 28th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Very interesting points there,I must admit my content is rubbish but it Links people in the right direction leaving me with a better bounce rate .About the content i am kinda new to blogging
Chris
June 8th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
[...] For example; lets assume you sell ‘footwear’ on your web site, along with clothing and accessories. Why would you mix keyword for sandals, flip-flops, and socks in with your ads for steel-toed work boots? Or why mix all of your keywords together and send people to your front page, where they are not only forced to "go digging" for the product they were searching for, but they are unable to see because it’s not obvious or even listed on your front page? Frustrating your visitors increases the possibility that they will simply leave if they can not find what they want. One less visitor equal one less sale and a higher bounce rate! [...]
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June 14th, 2009 at 11:09 pm