Question about bounce Rate ?

[lots0]

888 actually does use google analytics.

Look at bottom of source code. They indeed do..


I agree alexa is not totally accurate - but its close..

888 is a prime example of how this is totally wrong.

Your right, they do use GA... I made a mistake when I checked.

But never the less, test it yourself.
See if dropping GA from a site with a high bounce rate makes any difference to the ranking. Can't hurt on a low ranking, low traffic site now can it??

Or better yet, just manipulate the bounce rate on a low ranking, low traffic site that has GA installed and see what happens...

FYI - GFPC would disagree with me if I said sugar was sweet... lol

[GFPC]

Haha no Lots0 on the contrary - I often agree with you on most of your posts - over the last 3-4 years i have probably agreed with you on almost everything I read from you.. LOL - i may not have participated in the thread though ...

I am not saying I disagree - I am just very interested in this and knowing for sure 100% because in some ways it sticks in my mind - even though I have hesitations in believing it.

You make a good point though - to test it on a site - it would be a good way to test - i was only wondering if the fact that a site already had GA installed would that not hinder the testing process. How long would it take for google to make any changes to the site serps once GA is removed.

I know its not an exact science - I just know at one time one of my biggest sites had a high bounce rate and was getting 300 deposits a month and the serps were awesome.

Now the site has a really really low bounce rate and cant even get 10 deposits and has been obliterated. That is why i have no faith in this bonuce rate theory...

Any site i had with high bounce rates was the nuts! Any site with low bounce rates tanked.

[lots0]

Haha no Lots0 on the contrary...

I just can't get anything right today...

On the hand full of sites I have personal experience with, there was a very quick response in the SERP(7-10 days) to changes in the bounce rate.
Goes without saying, but you have to remember that when your checking the bounce rate, not to change anything else.

If your sites tanked in this last round of google madness... I would take a very close look at your backlinks.
A lot of people in the gambling nitch are fond of Xrumer type software and have been practicing their spammy link building skills against their competitors.

[GFPC]

do you just remove the GA code on site - or completely remove it from GA account?

[universal4]

Good question, I was wondering if commenting it out would be good enough.

Rick
Universal4

[lots0]

Good question.

I would imagine that commenting the code out would work.

You just don't want GA javascript reporting back to Big Brother at the Plex..

I removed all the code myself. But then I was never planning on using it again.

If google wants info about my site traffic from sources other than Google... they can pay for it.

[GFPC]

Haha thanks guys.. i sometimes have good questions ... well this is good cause you have given me something tangible to test out. Thanks so much for that - I am going top go ahead and remove "ONE SITE" from GA - first the tracking code - then maybe the whole profile from the Account. I do not want to remove the Google Tools part yet since it gives me all the links pointing to my site and i have been actively removing 100s of them to see if that makes a difference. Of course i did that a month ago and nothing..

So i will try removing the GA code and profile in GA and see what happens.

Will report back any changes.

[baldidiot]

This topic came up a while ago on one of the forums - I'll see if I can find a link to the old thread. The jist of it was that, at least back then, the google analytics T&C's didn't permit the sharing of data collected by the analytics code, even within google (eg: to the webspam or search teams). In fact somewhere on the GA website it even flat out said "we don't share your analytics data without your permission, even with other google products". Or has this changed?

Instead it was suggested that the bounce rate was determined by the number of people who returned to the search results by clicking 'back' etc... If this is the case, then we would have nothing to worry about as converted users wouldn't be seen as a bounce by google as the user continues on a forward path (eg: google -> aff site -> casino rather than google -> aff site -> google).

Something I suggested earlier in this thread is to set up events for your outbound links - if a user clicks your site and then clicks a link, this isn't considered a bounce as the user has interacted with the site. Just doing this would drop your bounce rate significantly which, if it did turn out that google was using GA data in the serps, would negate the effect or even help you (by having a relatively low bounce rate).

You could even go so far as to set other events such as time on page (etc..) to reduce your bounce rate further. From my perspective this makes GA data totally unreliable and way to easy to game, which supports the argument that the data isn't in fact used.

[baldidiot]

Right after turning my laptop off last night I thought of another point.

If you put yourself in googles shoes, their principle aim is to deliver the content that users are looking for. There are plenty of times in which that would result in a bounce - for example if you're looking for a menu for Bobs Pub you are most likely to search 'Bobs Pub Menu', click through to the menu, read it and then close it. Technically this is would be a bounce but 100% what the user is looking for - anything else would be poor performance by the big G.

So bounce rate really isn't a good metric. BUT, the return to search rate is an excellent metric - if a person clicks through to a site in the serps and then returns to the serps, then that site obviously didn't resolve their query. IMHO, this is much more likely to be used rather than bounce rate.

[lots0]

@baldidiot

You can guess, theorize and rationalize all you want...

But the ONLY way you'll know if the GA Bounce rate is used for ranking by google is to test it yourself... and that is easy to do.

I have tested it myself and I know...


@GFPC
google webmaster tools only has information that google already knows.
I use it all the time. Just like I use Bing Webmaster stuff.

Google analytics has ALL the traffic data on your site no matter the source and I for one just don't want to give that information away for a nice traffic analyzer program.


LOL... If you trust Google Analytics or not, just boils down to if you drink Google Kool-aid or not...

[GFPC]

@lots0 - thanks so much man for spending the time - I am certainly doing the test starting tonight. Your arguments seem very reasonable to me and I tend to agree with you on this one - but we certainly will know for sure in a couple weeks hopefully. Thanks again mate. I will PM you in changes I see positive or not. Cheers

[universal4]

I for one just don't want to give that information away

I said almost the EXACT same thing to someone yesterday that asked me my opinion on GA.

Rick
Universal4

[DaftDog]

If Google uses your analytics info to rank your site, what do they use if they do not have this information?

[baldidiot]

@baldidiot

You can guess, theorize and rationalize all you want...

But the ONLY way you'll know if the GA Bounce rate is used for ranking by google is to test it yourself... and that is easy to do.

I have tested it myself and I know...

Fair enough - I've never noticed a difference between with/without analytics myself but at the end of the day if you've found something that's helping your site I say go with it.

[PingPong]

interesting theory lots0
but I more tend to believe that it is NOT a good idea to remove GA just because your Bounce rate is high. (what is HIGH bounce rate anyway?)

If we assume that Google use analytics data to ranks sites (I actually agree with this assumption) - there are tens or maybe hundreds factors in GA that give signals to Google. Both negative and positive.

just a quick example:
Lets assume we have a blog and update it twice a month. If there is any 'quality' in it you would expect some followers via RSS, Twitter, Facebook etc + some google search traffic.
So I posted new blog, people came and read it. There is nothing else, they closed a page. Bounce rate is terrible.
Although ratings like time spent on site, number of returning visitors etc indicate that my site overall isn't THAT bad.

[PingPong]

Found this study on the subject.
http://i.imgur.com/jCUQ0.png
Not sure how credible is this, but seems valid to me

[technog33k]

Google have been looking at all of the metrics collected within Google Analytics for some time now. Bounce rates, average time on site, pageviews etc all contribute to SERPS and the "quality" factor of a site. The better these stats, the better the "quality" in their eyes. Of course there are a lot of contributing factors including links, social signals etc etc but this is certainly a small percentage of what they are looking at. There is also a way to view the actual clicks within the site if you are looking at your analytics statistics called "In Page Analytics" (click on content in the left hand sidebar - In Page Analytics). Google can see exactly where a user is clicking within the page content and provide this information to you and you can analyse this information to see whether clicks are occurring within the page that redirect a user internally through the site. Check it out and you might be able to use that information to better understand and dissect what users are actually doing within your site and also to possibly better position the content within the site to improve conversion rates. Remember that the major factor with gambling related content should be the conversion rates. If they are high then I would not be too worried about the bounce rates as it is only a small percentage of the overall SERP performance..

Most decent gambling themes thesedays also will have a way to hide and track the affiliate link clicks so this is a great way to actually track the links that are occurring to your affiliate partners...

[shanepaul126]

You have to change your site template if not attractive or make deep links.

[Tommy12]

A 60% bounce rate is not too bad for a gambling related site.
You should try to focus more on a niche bingo market if wish to improve this figure. If it came from Alexa it is NOT accurate in my opinion....since they get their data from toolbar users.
Regards :
Tommy12

[lots0]

It appears that with the "new" Google Analytics that displays site activity in real time has drastically changed the way google views the Bounce Rate.

So, just want to point out my old argument in this thread about Bounce Rate effecting SERPS is just that... old.