Is are defined as the percentage of visitors who leave the Web site after viewing that page?

At a glance

To understand the difference between Exit Rate and Bounce Rate for a particular page, keep the following points in mind:

1. For all pageviews to the page, Exit Rate is the percentage that were the last in the session.
2. For all sessions that start with the page, Bounce Rate is the percentage that were the only one of the session.
3. Bounce Rate for a page is based only on sessions that start with that page.  

In depth

Let's clarify this last point with a simple example. Your site has pages A through C, and only one session per day exists, with the following pageview order:

• Monday: Page A > Page B > Page C
• Tuesday: Page B > Page A > Page C
• Wednesday: Page A > exit

The Content report for Page A would show 3 pageviews and a 50% bounce rate.  You might have guessed that the Bounce Rate would be 33%, but the Tuesday pageview granted to Page A is not considered in its Bounce Rate calculation. Consider that a bounce is the notion of a session with only one interaction from the user, and the session-centric analysis answers a simple yes/no question: "Did this session contain more than one pageview?" If the answer to that question is "no," then it's important to consider which page was involved in the bounce.  If the answer is "yes," then it only matters that the initial page in the session lead to other pageviews.  For that reason, bounce rate for a page is only meaningful when it initiates the session.

Now let's extend this example to explore the Exit rate and Bounce rate metrics for a series of single-session days on your site.

• Monday: Page B > Page A > Page C > Exit
• Tuesday:  Page B > Exit
• Wednesday:  Page A > Page C > Page B > Exit
• Thursday:  Page C > Exit
• Friday: Page B > Page C > Page A > Exit

The % Exit and Bounce Rate calculations are:

Exit Rate: 

• Page A: 33% (3 sessions included Page A, 1 session exited from Page A)
• Page B: 50% (4 sessions included Page B, 2 sessions exited from Page B)
• Page C: 50% (4 sessions included Page C, 2 sessions exited from Page C)

Bounce Rate:

• Page A: 0% (one session began with Page A, but that was not a single-page session, so it has no Bounce Rate)
• Page B: 33% (Bounce Rate is less than Exit Rate, because 3 sessions started with Page B, with one leading to a bounce)
• Page C: 100% (one session started with Page C, and it lead to a bounce)

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About bounce rate

A bounce is a single-page session on your site. In Analytics, a bounce is calculated specifically as a session that triggers only a single request to the Analytics server, such as when a user opens a single page on your site and then exits without triggering any other requests to the Analytics server during that session.

Bounce rate is single-page sessions divided by all sessions, or the percentage of all sessions on your site in which users viewed only a single page and triggered only a single request to the Analytics server.

These single-page sessions have a session duration of 0 seconds since there are no subsequent hits after the first one that would let Analytics calculate the length of the session. Learn more about how session duration is calculated.

Is a high bounce rate a bad thing?

It depends.

If the success of your site depends on users viewing more than one page, then, yes, a high bounce rate is bad. For example, if your home page is the gateway to the rest of your site (e.g., news articles, product pages, your checkout process) and a high percentage of users are viewing only your home page, then you don’t want a high bounce rate.

On the other hand, if you have a single-page site like a blog, or offer other types of content for which single-page sessions are expected, then a high bounce rate is perfectly normal.

Lower your bounce rate

Examine your bounce rate from different perspectives. For example:

• The Audience Overview report provides the overall bounce rate for your site.
• The Channels report provides the bounce rate for each channel grouping.
• The All Traffic report provides the bounce rate for each source/medium pair.
• The All Pages report provides the bounce rate for individual pages.

If your overall bounce rate is high, then you can dig deeper to see whether it’s uniformly high or whether it’s the result of something like one or two channels, source/medium pairs, or just a few pages.

For example, if just a few pages are the problem, examine whether the content correlates well with the marketing you use to drive users to those pages, and whether those pages offer users easy paths to the next steps you want them to take.

If a particular channel has a high bounce rate, take a look at your marketing efforts for that channel: for example, if users coming via display are bouncing, make sure your ads are relevant to your site content.

If the problem is more widespread, take a look at your tracking-code implementation to be sure all the necessary pages are tagged and that they’re tagged correctly. And you may want to reevaluate your overall site design and examine the language, graphics, color, calls to action, and visibility of important page elements.

You can use Optimize to test different versions of your site pages to see which designs encourage users to engage more.

If you have a single-page site, learn about non-interaction events that you can implement to better capture user engagement and identify single-page sessions that are not bounces.

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