SEO Blog > The Big Debate Rages on: Google, Search Engine Ranking, and Bounce Rates

The Big Debate Rages on: Google, Search Engine Ranking, and Bounce Rates

Posted • December 30, 2008 • Comments Off

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More on Bounce Rates or should we call it SCASI and Google

I have been discussing the existence of a bounce rate in the seo/seo-search-engine-ranking-bounce-rate-and-google”>Google ranking algorithm for a while and I found an interesting post by David Leonhardt.

… there has been a lot of discussion about bounce rates and whether or not the search engines count these in their algorithms… I would like to share with you 9 common objections I have seen to using bounce rates as part of the search engine 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.

David takes on the nay-sayers and their objections to the existence of such a thing as bounce rate or SCASI. I would also like to chime in with my opinions.
bounce The Big Debate Rages on: Google, Search Engine Ranking, and Bounce Rates

9 Objections to Bounce Rates in Algorithms

1 ) There is no definition of “bounce rate”.

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

Great definition. It really couldn’t get any simpler that that.

2 ) I don’t like how Google Analytics defines a bounce.

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.

Google isn’t really known for sharing their algorithmic information.

3 ) Many sites don’t have Google Analytics turned on, so Google would have very incomplete data.

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.

big brother watching The Big Debate Rages on: Google, Search Engine Ranking, and Bounce Rates We are talking about a bounce back to a search page after clicking on an outbound link. How much information is your little Google search box sending back to the mother ship when you are logged in?

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.)

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.

I am in total agreement. You might be interrupted or distracted and when you get back to your task … I am sure there must be some sort of time limit but…

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.

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

What if your site is so well designed that they find the information they are looking for instantly then leave? Not a bounce unless they returned to whence they came. If they do hit the back button chances are they didn’t find what they were looking for.

6 ) What if the user quickly closes the window?

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.

When it comes to the search engines they are the masters of their own algorithms. We can conjecture all we’d like and it would still only be conjecture.

7 ) Doesn‘t a bounce mean the person has found what they want? Can‘t a bounce sometimes be good?

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.

I totally agree. “What if your site is so well designed that they find the information they are looking for instantly then leave? Not a bounce unless they returned to whence they came. If they do hit the back button chances are they didn’t find what they were looking for.” Seems like I have heard that before.

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.

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. On the other hand, if one site typically bounces and the others don’t, the bouncy site clearly is less useful than the others and should be demoted.

The answer is in the details. Algorithms are very intricate but not perfect.

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?

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.

Money and manpower do create an unfair playing field.

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.

Good websites will win out over time. Even if you are using Black Hat techniques and hiring masses to help promote your site in the long run the really good sites will prevail.

I will use open source as an example;
Microsoft has lots of money and they can buy a lot of man hours. They still can’t compete with the man hours available to open source projects.

So build a good useful site, optimize it for your users first and the search engines second, continue to make it grow and you will have fewer bounces and be at the top of the search engine rankings too.

Late,
Gary Pool

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