What is a site ’bounce’? Well we know (hopefully) that it is a single page view of a page on your site. So how do we calculate the ‘bounce rate’ for the site? The Web Analytics Association’s set of Web Analytics definitions published in August 2007 states the following:
“TERM: Bounce Rate
Type: Ratio
Universe: Aggregate, Segmented
Definition/Calculation:
Single page view visits divided by entry pages.
Comments:
If bounce rate is being calculated for a specific page, then it is the number of times
that page was a single page view visit divided by the number of times that page was
an entry. If bounce rate is calculated for a group of pages, then it is the number of
times pages in that group was a single page view visit divided by the number of
times pages in that group were entry pages. A site-wide bounce rate represents the
percentage of total visits that were single page view visits.”
I decided to search on the term ‘what is a bounce rate’ and found that many people are defining bounce rate in many different ways. Here are a few examples:
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=21197
http://www.serverdome.org/stumbleupon-traffic-bounce-rate-is-amazing/
http://iudaea.com/high-bounce-rate
These are just a few examples of different definitions I have seen from that search and also in the past. It made me wonder if any of the metrics we all use will ever be standardised and commonly accepted. Sure, some of the defintions are similar but then there is a discrepancy in the use of terminology – for example visits and visitors are interchanged or used exclusively. There is a difference between the two terms – check out the Web Analytics Association (WAA) definitions guide to see the differences and also see if you agree with the definitions in general. Personally I believe that standardisation is needed and the WAA is leading the way in trying to achieve this.
Recently the WAA and Interactive Advertising Bureau agreed to increase collaboration on Web Metrics Standards - what other discrepancies need to be standardised and addressed? Online Video metrics is one area for sure and I am aware that in the UK ABCe are looking at ways of addressing this . What will be the next challenge in terms of standardising measurement metric definitions and will we ever keep up??!
