In Universal Analytics a bounce is a visit that sent a single page view and nothing else, whatever the visitor actually did. Judge it page by page, distrust single-digit figures, and add events so it means something.

A number that alarms people

The monthly report shows the contact page with one of the highest bounce rates on the site, and somebody suggests it needs a redesign.

On another site, the bounce rate dropped to almost nothing overnight, and the owner took it as good news.

Both readings are often wrong. The contact page may be doing its job perfectly, and the second site has probably started counting every visit twice.

What Universal Analytics counts as a bounce

Analytics learns about a visit through hits: small messages the tracking code sends when a page loads, and whenever anything else it has been told to record happens.

A bounce is a visit that sent one hit and no more, usually the page view of the page it landed on. A page's bounce rate is the share of visits starting there that bounced.

Notice what is missing from that definition. Reading, scrolling and tapping the phone number are all invisible unless the site sends a hit for them.

So a visitor who reads for five minutes and then phones is a bounce. So is somebody who arrived by mistake and left within a second.

When a bounce is the right result

The fifth catches many businesses out. Booking systems, ordering platforms and shops on other domains take the visitor away, so the visits that went best look like bounces.

Why a very low bounce rate is a warning

Real visitors bounce. Some arrive by mistake, some find what they need at once, and some are robots that slipped past the filters.

A site-wide bounce rate in single figures almost always means something is sending a second hit from every page, most often because the tracking code is installed twice.

It happens easily. A theme has a box for the tracking code, a plugin adds it again, and a later developer adds Tag Manager on top. Every page view is then counted twice, and no visit can bounce.

Pages per session doubles at the same moment, which is the other giveaway. Chat widgets and pop-ups that send their own hits as the page loads can have the same effect.

Checking for a duplicate code

Open the Real-Time report, then load one page of the site in another window. One visit to one page should register one page view, not two.

Searching the page's source for the tracking ID, which starts with UA, shows how many times it appears. Google's Tag Assistant extension for Chrome also warns when one property is tracked twice.

Note the date the bounce rate fell. It tends to match a plugin installed, a theme changed or a widget added, and every report since then is inflated.

A worked example

A self-storage facility on the edge of a suburb had a small site: unit sizes and prices, a page on access hours, and a contact page.

Its monthly report showed bounce rates on the unit sizes page that looked alarming. Most visitors to that page were people on phones who checked a size and a price, then called.

Last autumn a reservation widget was added, and within a day the bounce rate across the site fell almost to zero. The widget had brought its own copy of the tracking code.

Every page view since then had been counted twice. The reports looked like the best months the site had ever had, and none of it was real.

The duplicate was removed. Taps on the number and clicks on reserve a unit now send events, so a bounce on the unit sizes page means somebody left without calling or reserving.

Events that make the figure mean something

An event is a hit sent when something happens on the page: a tap on the phone number, a click to the booking system, a form sent, a video played, a menu downloaded.

Events count as interaction by default, so a visit that includes one is no longer a bounce. Add events for the actions that matter, and a bounce starts to mean a visitor who left without doing anything useful.

Events can also be marked as non-interaction, so they are recorded without changing the bounce rate. Use that for anything that fires on its own, such as a chat window that opens automatically.

Read it page by page

A site-wide bounce rate averages the contact page, the blog and the home page together, which tells you nothing about any of them.

Use the Landing Pages report instead, and compare each page with itself: this month against last, phones against computers, search visitors against people from an ad.

A sudden change on one page is worth investigating. A steady figure that merely looks high usually is not.

Time on page has the same blind spot

Analytics measures time between hits, so it never knows how long somebody spent on the last page of a visit. A bounced visit shows zero seconds, however long it really lasted.

That drags down the averages for exactly the pages people read most carefully. The same events that make the bounce rate meaningful fix this too.

The counter-case

Bounce rate is not useless.

On a landing page for paid ads, where the next step is a form on another page, a rising bounce rate is a fair early warning that the ad and the page disagree.

A sudden jump on one page often points to something broken: a slow load, a missing image, a form that no longer works on phones.

And on a site with few visits, any rate swings from month to month, so read it over a quarter rather than a week.

Treat it as a prompt to look at a page, never as a verdict, and give it events so it measures something you care about.

The check

  1. Look at the site-wide figure for single digits.
  2. Watch Real-Time while loading one page.
  3. Remove any duplicate tracking code.
  4. Add events for phone, email and booking clicks.
  5. Mark automatic events as non-interaction.
  6. Read bounce rate in the Landing Pages report.
  7. Note the date of every tracking change.

Step four is the one that turns the figure into something useful. Once the actions that matter send events, a bounce means a visitor who left without doing any of them.

Counting those actions as enquiries is covered in goals in analytics that nobody set up.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as a bounce in Universal Analytics?

A visit that sent only one hit, usually the page view of the page it landed on. Reading, scrolling or phoning do not count unless the site sends a hit for them.

Is a high bounce rate bad?

Not necessarily. On a contact page, an hours page or a post answering one question, a bounce often means the visitor found what they needed and acted on it.

Why is my bounce rate almost zero?

Usually because the tracking code is installed twice, so every page sends two page views and no visit can bounce. Pages per session will have doubled at the same time.

How do I check for a duplicate tracking code?

Watch the Real-Time report while loading one page, search the page source for the tracking ID, or use Google's Tag Assistant extension for Chrome, which flags duplicates.

How do events change the bounce rate?

Events count as interaction by default, so a visit with a phone tap or booking click is no longer a bounce. Events that fire automatically should be marked non-interaction.

Where should I read bounce rate?

In the Landing Pages report, page by page, comparing each page with itself over time and by device or source, never as a single figure for the whole site.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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