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How does google factor in bounce rate for SERPs
mark schaaf
Posts: 365
Joined: 04 Oct 10
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04 May 12 4:40 pm

How does google factor in bounce rate for SERPs

I have asked about bounce rate on this forum a few times as to how to reduce it and some said to shorten some of the articles on my site because people are often too lazy to read an entire article so I did. However I am still getting a high bounce on many of my pages so I decided to take a better look at my google analytics to see what people are typing it go get to my pages and found some interesting things. I did this today because I had 10 visits yesterday and all but one bounced. Now from what I have been told about bounce rate from someone is that someone could go to my home page and stay for a minute or 2 and leave and the time is not counted because people left from there and didn't go to another page and it is considered a bounce. Whether that is true or not I don't know but that doesn't really make any sense to me.

Anyhow people keep telling me that people bounce because the don't find the answer to there question so I looked at what some people are typing in. one person typed in a search--- how do I purchase 200 euro's worth of 2 euro coins in the us. I have a page on my site titled vacation money how to budget and handle it. On this page I explain how to budget your vacation using foreign ATM's and put an exchange rate calculator on it. So I typed it into google and I am on page 2 of google for this search but am not sure why. My page says some banks can get you euros before you leave but nothing about how to get 200 euros worth of 2 euro coins.

In all the SEO stuff I have done I try to be very specific about what and who I am targeting. Almost all the other clicks I got yesterday were a little of beat in what people typed in but for the most part only one word in there search matched something in my page titles or content on the page they landed on and as I said all my SEO is in long tail keyword phrases. So I guess my questions are if google were as good as they keep telling people they are why are my pages that only remotely have anything to do with the search terms being typed in showing up on pages high in search results instead of back on maybe page 10 where they belong. The other question is how will this high bounce rate affect my SERP for the terms I am focusing on in my SEO. I mean if I am targeting in on lets say how to plan an italian vacation and I show up in results for someone who types in how to plan an overnight camping party because google sees how to plan an and goes with it. What are your thoughts because I just don't understand google although I don't know if anyone does. Mark
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Mark
 
PremiumMember
jimcoe
Posts: 259
Joined: 13 Feb 12
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04 May 12 7:30 pm

 Congratulations on using your metrics to find the facts behind your bounce rate. Good to know when to worry that bounce is a result of your content and when it's something else.

I just wish there was a way to use "negative keywords" in on-page SEO, like their is in Google AdWords PPC.

Anyone know a way?

Here's the Wikipedia definition of "Bounce Rate"

Cheers!
_jim coe
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contact20
Posts: 4
Joined: 15 May 12
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15 May 12 6:23 pm

 Build more internal links within your content.

Promote other posts that are similar to the one users on are.

Add videos, clickable slides or games that require a click. Users don't have to leave the page to commit a second action. You can get 2 clicks from one page which won't count as a bounce.
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mark.morgan
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Joined: 09 Jun 12
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09 Jun 12 5:38 am

 While talking about bounce rate and SEO, I heard a few people talking about SERP Bounce and it being a SEO factor. It was not possible to give any concrete reference whether SERP Bounce is an influential SEO Factor, since Google never confirmed it. Though it seemed, it was something that Google can use either as quality factor or as ranking signal for SEO. Moreover, Google also has the ability and right to track this user behavior.
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burkhardt5
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Joined: 26 Jun 09
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25 Jun 12 5:29 pm

 If google does take bounce rate as a S.E.R.P. factor (as I think it does), I think it would only take the extreme into consideration.

What I mean by that is, if your bounce rate is anywhere from say 40-60 % there should be basically no influence. But if your bounce rate is like 80% or higher then it may hurt you and if it is like 30% or lower it may help you.

People are very lazy when they surf the net and rarely put much thought into the keywords that they search so they will often get results that are not exactly what they had in mind.

Google should understand this and not put any weight on medium % bounce rates. Anyway thats how I see it.

Never Give Up!!!
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Paul J. Burkhardt
 
vikassingal2002
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Joined: 03 May 12
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26 Jun 12 11:05 am

 Hello Mark, I had a look at your post And i must appreciate the amount of efforts you have put in. My suggestion is simple for you....If people are coming to your site for wrong reasons ( as you posted) there's nothing to worry about from your end. You just focus on the real term related to your business and should concentrate people should not go ( bounce) if they land to your page for your main terms...

Hope it helps.
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industrialgears.jv
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Joined: 06 Jul 12
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07 Jul 12 11:35 am

 Bounce rate is the percentage of visits where the visitor enters and exits at the same page without visiting any other pages on the site in between.Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert.The bounce rate alone might not be used by Google but combined with other factors, it could have an effect on the rankings.
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