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Website Bounce Rates Count
By David Leonhardt (c) 2008

Of late there has been a lot of discussion about bounce rates
and whether or not the search engines count these in their
algorithms. As far back as late 2007, there were reports that
webmasters were seeing a difference in their rankings for major
keywords within a few weeks of drastically changing their bounce
rates. However, none of the tests and reports seem to be
complete enough or repeatable enough to constitute proof.

As a result, there are plenty of naysayers who believe that
such things as bounce rates are not now and probably never will
be part of the search engine algorithms.

I am of the opposite view; bounce rates will certainly be part
of the search engine algorithms and probably already are.

What I would like to do here is share with you some of the
common naysayer objections and refute all but one of them.
But first, for those who are scratching their heads about what
bounce means, we are referring to people leaving a website. A
bouncy website is the opposite of a sticky website, one where
people stay a long time.

Objection 1: There is no definition of "bounce rate".

Response: This is the flimsiest of arguments. A bounce is when
someone leaves a website, going back where they came from.

Objection 2: I don't like how Google Analytics defines a bounce.

Response: Sadly, Google doesn't ask me for advice, either. But
cheer up, the bounce rate in Google Analytics might not be the
same as they use in their algorithm, just as the little green
bar is not necessarily the PageRank they use in their algorithm.

Objection 3: Many sites don't have Google Analytics turned on,
so Google would have very incomplete data.

Response (scratching my head in confusion): What does Google
Analytics have to do with anything? This is about Google (or
Yahoo, or MSN, or Ask, or some other) tracking their own traffic
and how their own users move about and - most importantly - how
their users return to their website.

Objection 4: What is the threshold for a bounce? After 5
seconds? After 10 second? After 15 seconds? This is a mess!
(This is often part of the how-do-we-define-a-bounce debate.)

Response: A bounce is a bounce, whether it takes a person one
second or one hour to bounce back, it is a bounce. How the
search engines choose to treat bounces with varying lag times
is another matter. Let's be clear; they won't tell you, just as
they won't tell you how many links on a page they index, how
many they follow and how many they count in their ranking
algorithms. Furthermore, it is a moving target. Just like every
other algorithm input, bounce rates and bounce lag times will
not be treated in the exact same way one day to the next.

Objection 5: What if people quickly click on an external link
and leave my site? They found the site useful because they found
a useful link on it, but they bounced.

Response: That is not a bounce, that's a referral. A bounce is
when someone hits the back button.

Objection 6: What if the user quickly closes the window?

Response: That could be any number of things, but it is not a
bounce. Who can guess how the search engines might treat that,
or even if they treat it at all. However, it need not be
considered a bounce unless the search engines believe it should
be.

Objection 7: Doesn't a bounce mean the person has found what
they want? Can't a bounce sometimes be good?

Response: Sometimes, perhaps, but rarely. After 5 seconds, a
person has no time to read a page. After 30 seconds, they might
have found something useful. So lag times matter. More
importantly, the search engines can determine what a person does
next. If a person returns to the search results and clicks on
another link, that is a sign they did not find what they want.
If they return to the search results and conduct a similar
search, that might also be a sign they did not find what they
want. If they return to the search results and conduct an
unrelated search, that might be a sign that they found what they
want. Search engines can weigh various bounces in light of the
user's next action.

Objection 8: For some searches, people look for multiple
sources, such as comparing prices, comparing products, seeking
varying opinions, etc. Too many sites would be penalized if all
those bounces were to be counted in the rankings.

Response: This is an example of false logic. If someone clicks
on one website, then bounces, clicks on another website, then
bounces, clicks on another website then bounces...all the
high-ranking websites for that particular search query would be
equally affected. Nobody would suffer a ranking disadvantage
because rankings are relative.

Objection 9: Can't I just set up a bot to visit all my top
competitors and leave their site after varying numbers of
seconds to make it appear that their sites are all bouncy.

Response: Yes, you can. And you can get very creative. I have
even heard of couriers in China travelling from one Internet
café to another to click on a particular site as a means of
increasing its rankings. I have no answer for this, other than
that the search engines will have to control for this, just as
they have found ways to control for automated link-building.

So have no fear. Good websites that provide what their visitors
want or who help them find what they want will prosper. Sticky
SEO looks at conversions and stickiness as integral elements to
SEO.

Cheap sites that do a lot of link-building - bouncy SEO -
counting on large volumes of traffic to offset poor conversion
rates, will suffer - because the search engines will stop
sending them that traffic.

It's just a matter of time. Or perhaps it has already started.
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David Leonhardt is a professional SEO consultant
(http://www.seo-writer.com) who never shies away from fearless
predictions. David is the author of the Sticky SEO book
(http://www.seo-writer.com/books/sticky-seo.html) that advises
on how to optimize websites for algorithms that include user
actions, such as bounces.
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