Understanding bounce rate and exit rate

Wimads
Wimads Member Posts: 15
edited September 2022 in Ask a Question

Hi all,

I was looking at my site statistics, and was wondering about bounce rate and exit rate.

I have got some pages with a 100% bounce rate, but a very low exit rate (10% for one example). Should I interpret that as 90% of visitors on that page simply having left that page open in a tab in the background? Or is there possibilities of bouncing without exiting? (because average time spent on page is 20 seconds, which seems impossible if 90% of 10 viewers has left the page open in the past week)

Best Answer

  • courtneyquaresimo
    courtneyquaresimo Member Posts: 183 Leader
    Answer ✓

    Bounce Rate - user accesses the website and then leaves without any interaction

    Exit Rate - user arrived from another page inside of your site and then left the site on that page


    So for example: If you have an "about" page with an bounce rate for 80%, it means they landed on that page from somewhere outside of you site (such as Facebook) and then left without having any interaction. If that same page has an exit rate of 60%, it means that they came from another page (such as the homepage), came to the "about" page and then left the site from that page. This is useful information because you can see what pages users are leaving your site from most as they are navigating your website. You can then analyze that page and see how you can make improvements to keep users engaged longer, just as you would with bounce rate.


    I hope that helps clear things up a bit better.

Answers

  • courtneyquaresimo
    courtneyquaresimo Member Posts: 183 Leader

    Bounce Rate means that a user entered a page and left it before moving to another page. Exit means a user arrived at a page from another page in the site and closed the site on this page, without moving to another internal page.

  • Wimads
    Wimads Member Posts: 15
    edited September 2022

    Okay, I'm not quite sure I grasp it yet.

    Exit seems simple enough, the visitor didn't just leave that page, but they left my website all together. Correct?

    And you say that a bounce means the visitor left the page, but did not leave the website. Correct?

    I always thought a bounce meant no interaction with the page (not clicking anything). The only way to leave a page without exiting my website, is by navigating to another page right? So how can you navigate to another page on my website, without interaction? You would have to click a link in my menu. (I doubt people would type the url manually...)

  • Wimads
    Wimads Member Posts: 15

    Okay got it, thanks for the explanation.

    So then, a 100% bounce rate means 100% of visitors arriving from outside; not 100% of all visitors on that page. That is a relief.

    So my pages with high bounce rate but low exit rate, tell me that visitors that land on those pages from outside, tend to leave right away; but those that arrived from another page of my site, tend to stick around.

    So I am guessing it's the people that accidentally find my site that bounce; since the people intentionally looking for me would most likely land on the home page and explore the site from there.