Glossary · Web analytics
What is bounce rate?
Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions in which a visitor viewed only one page and left without viewing a second page.
It's one of the oldest web metrics and one of the most misread: a high bounce rate is bad on a pricing page and perfectly normal on a blog post that answers the question in full.
Updated
How is bounce rate calculated?
Bounce rate = single-page sessions ÷ total sessions × 100
A bounce is a session with exactly one pageview. Bounce rate for a page is calculated over the sessions that started (landed) on that page, not over every view of it.
Google Analytics 4 redefined the term: in GA4, bounce rate is the inverse of engagement rate, so a single-page visit that lasts 10 seconds or more, or triggers a key event, is not a bounce. The two definitions can differ by 20–40 percentage points on the same site, so always check which one a number uses.
Bounce rate example
Your pricing page started 2,000 sessions last month. In 1,100 of them the visitor left without viewing another page. Bounce rate = 1,100 ÷ 2,000 = 55%. If 300 of those 1,100 stayed longer than 10 seconds, GA4 would report a bounce rate of 800 ÷ 2,000 = 40% for the same visits.
What is a good bounce rate?
There's no universal good number; it depends on the page's job. Pages meant to move people onward (homepages, pricing, category pages) should bounce less than pages that fully answer a question (docs, blog posts, glossary entries). Compare a page against itself over time and against pages with the same purpose, not against an industry average.
Common bounce rate mistakes
- Bots. Scrapers view one page and leave, so unfiltered bot traffic pushes bounce rate up — a sudden spike is often a bot, not a design problem.
- Single-page apps. If the tracker misses route changes, every visit looks like a one-page visit and bounce rate approaches 100%.
- Mixing definitions. Comparing a classic bounce rate with a GA4 one makes a site look like it improved or regressed when nothing changed.
- Optimizing it directly. Splitting an article into three pages lowers bounce rate and makes the experience worse. Fix the reason people leave, not the metric.
How VisitTrack measures bounce rate
VisitTrack uses the classic definition: the share of sessions with exactly one pageview, shown on the Overview and per page in the Pages tab. Because the script also measures active time and scroll depth on every page (see script configuration), you can tell a reader who stayed three minutes on one page from someone who left in two seconds — without the bounce definition changing under you. Bot visits are excluded, so scraper runs don't distort it.
Frequently asked questions
Is a high bounce rate bad?
Not necessarily. A high bounce rate is a problem on pages whose job is to send people somewhere else, like pricing or a homepage. On a blog post or documentation page that answers the question, a high bounce rate is normal.
What is the difference between bounce rate and exit rate?
Bounce rate counts sessions that started and ended on a page with no other pageview. Exit rate counts how often a page was the last one viewed, across all sessions that included it, including long multi-page visits.
How does GA4 calculate bounce rate?
GA4 calculates bounce rate as 100% minus engagement rate, where an engaged session lasted at least 10 seconds, had two or more pageviews, or included a key event.
Related terms
- Engagement rateEngagement rate is the percentage of sessions that counted as engaged — in Google Analytics 4, sessions that lasted at least 10 seconds, viewed two or more pages, or triggered a key event.
- Exit pageAn exit page is the last page a visitor viewed in a session before leaving the site; exit rate is the share of a page's views that were the last in their session.
- SessionA session is a group of pageviews and events from one visitor that happen close together in time, and that ends once the visitor has been inactive for a set timeout — usually 30 minutes.
- Landing pageA landing page is the page a visitor first arrives on from a link, ad or search result — and, in marketing, a standalone page designed for one campaign with a single call to action.
- Average session durationAverage session duration is the mean length of time between the first and last recorded activity in a session, averaged across all sessions in a period.
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