Russfoster's Weblog

How many different bounce rate definitions can you find?

russfoster — Mon, 12 May 2008 22:13:28 +0000

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??!

Tabs no more

russfoster — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:47:49 +0000

Amazon have had a re-design – www.amazon.co.uk – no more tabbed browsing by the looks of things! I think I prefer it. They have even been kind enough to show users what the new features are in the re-design and how to use them. Great in terms of transition for current customers. I would be intrigued to learn what difference this is making to conversion. Will it be going down or up??

Yahoo and Index Tools

russfoster — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Very interesting… http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/20080410/tc_cmp/207100719

Eric Peterson’s take – http://blog.webanalyticsdemystified.com/weblog/2008/04/how-yahoo-buying-indextools-changes-web-analytics.html

This is a smart move by Yahoo! Index Tools is a decent low cost tool. It will be interesting to see how Yahoo! integrate the tool with their existing in-house analytics and the forthcoming AMP (Advertising Management Platform – see http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/press/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=303352)

Does this also signal intent by Yahoo! to stave off the recent hostile Microsft approach? If Microsoft succeed in their attempts what does this mean for Index Tools’ technology in the light of Gatineau, Microsoft’s Analytics offering which is currently in Beta?

http://forums.microsoft.com/AdCenter/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2338654&SiteID=44