Bounce rate is the percentage of visits to your website that result in
no interactions beyond landing on the page. It is typically measured
by a website’s analytics program such as Google Analytics.
Some SEOs have argued that bounce rate is a ranking factor
because it is a measure of quality.
Unfortunately, it is not a good measure of quality.
There are many reasons why a visitor might land on a webpage
and leave again without interacting further with the site. They may
well have read all the information they needed to on that page and
left the site to call the company and book an appointment. In that
instance, the visitor bouncing has resulted in a lead for the company.
Although a visitor leaving a page having landed on it could be an
indicator of poor quality content, it isn’t always. It, therefore, wouldn’t
be reliable enough for a search engine to use as a measure of
quality.
“Pogo-sticking,” or a visitor clicking on a search result and then
returning to the SERPs, would be a more reliable indicator of the
quality of the landing page. It would suggest that the content of the
page was not what the user was after, so much so that they have
returned to the search results to find another page or re-search.
- Bounce Rate Is a Ranking Factor
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