What are bounces?

Bounce is defined as a visit with only a single page view. In other words, the entry and exit page are the same and there is only a single server request (e.g., 200 OK status) with the MIME-type text/html, text/vnd.wap.wml or application/vnd.wap.xhtml. This means that a visitor visited your website and saw only one page.

Bounce Rate is the percent of visits during which a Bounce occurred.

Note: To identify page views, in addition to the MIME-type (see above), SiteSpect looks for an opening html, meta, or wml tag in the first 2000 characters of the file.

Remember the following points about Bounces and Bounce Rate:

Note: Audiences evaluate only a visitor's eligibility to be assigned to a Campaign. Once a visitor is assigned to a Campaign and counted (visited a page where a Factor is being tested), subsequent visits are not required to meet Audiences. As such, it is possible to see Bounces in this Campaign if, for example, a visitor bookmarks the page where the Factor is being tested and enters and exits on that page during a return visit.
  • The Bounce Rate in SiteSpect may vary significantly from the Site Bounce Rate reported by your web analytics program. There are a number of reasons for this, but one common cause is related to Audiences. If, for example, you are using an ENTRYURL Audiences to assign only visitors who start their visit on your home page and you are testing a Factor in your checkout funnel, visitors must visit multiple pages to be counted in the Campaign results. As a result, the Bounce Rate for this Campaign will be significantly lower than the Site Bounce Rate reported by your web analytics program.
  • Bounces are generally reported as zero length (seconds) due to the fact that SiteSpect does not record the time spent on the last page viewed during a visit. However, there are cases in which a Bounce has a non-zero length since SiteSpect tracks time per visit from the time of the first status 200 request to the last status 200 request. If, for example, you have a page that makes Ajax requests while a visitor is visiting a page, those requests (status 200 OK) allow SiteSpect to record a non-zero length despite the fact that the visitor may only trigger a single page view before exiting your site. In this case, your reports will indicate a single page view visit (Bounce) with a non-zero length.