What is the bounce rate?

The bounce rate is a web analytics metric that measures the percentage of visitors to a page who leave again without taking any action or moving to another page on the same domain. A bounce happens when a user opens a page and leaves it without any further interaction. The bounce rate therefore tells you how well or how poorly a page holds the attention of its visitors and moves them to interact further.

Bounce rate explained: the share of visitors who leave a page without a second interaction

How is the bounce rate calculated?

The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of single page sessions by the total number of sessions and multiplying the result by 100 to get a percentage. The formula is:

Bounce rate = (number of single page sessions / total number of sessions) x 100

An example: if a website has 1,000 visits and 500 of them are bounces, the bounce rate is 50%. Half of the visitors left the page without taking any further action.

How does the bounce rate affect SEO?

The bounce rate is an important figure for search engine optimization, because it can indirectly affect how visible a page is in the search results. A high bounce rate can be a sign that the content or the layout of the page is not relevant or appealing enough for visitors, which in turn can lead search engines to treat that page as less valuable or less relevant.

The bounce rate is, however, not the only figure search engines look at, and a high bounce rate is not always a bad sign. On a contact page or in a blog post, a high bounce rate can mean the opposite: visitors found exactly what they were looking for and had no reason to click any further.

To improve your SEO performance, it is essential to read the bounce rate in context and to work out why visitors leave. Better content, a clearer design or stronger user guidance bring the bounce rate down and make the visit itself more useful, which can lift visibility in the search results. Practical steps such as placing relevant internal links, offering follow-up content or improving load times (see Core Web Vitals) reduce the bounce rate and keep visitors on the website for longer.