Glossary
Bounce Rate
The percentage of visitors who leave a site after viewing only one page.
Definition
Bounce rate is a web analytics metric that measures the percentage of visitors who land on a page and leave without interacting with any other page on the same website. A bounce can occur when a visitor reads the page and leaves, clicks the back button, closes the browser, or stays idle long enough for the session to time out.
Why It Matters
Bounce rate is a quality signal used to evaluate how well a page satisfies visitor intent. Persistently high bounce rates can indicate poor user experience, which does indirectly affect rankings over time. Reducing bounce rate typically requires improving content relevance, page load speed, and readability.
Examples
Blog post bounce rate65–90% is typical — many readers read and leave without clicking further
E-commerce product page20–45% — lower because users browse multiple products
Contact page70–90% — users often find what they need and leave
Landing page (PPC)Ideally below 60% — high bounce rates waste ad spend
Common Mistakes
Treating all bounce rates as bad — a high bounce rate on a contact or FAQ page may mean users found their answer.
Confusing bounce rate with exit rate.
Not segmenting bounce rate by traffic source.
Ignoring page load speed — slow-loading pages dramatically increase bounce rates.