Bounce Rate

The percentage of sessions where a user visited only one page and left without interacting further.

Bounce rate is tracked differently in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) vs Universal Analytics (UA). In UA, bounce rate was the percentage of single-page sessions. In GA4, it was replaced by "engagement rate" — the percentage of sessions that are engaged (at least 10 seconds, 2 pageviews, or a conversion event). GA4's "bounce rate" is the inverse of engagement rate.

High bounce rate does not always indicate a problem. If a user lands on a blog post, reads the whole thing, and leaves satisfied, that is technically a bounce (one page visited) but is a positive outcome. Context matters: for e-commerce or multi-step content, high bounce rate indicates users are not finding what they expected. For informational content that fully answers a question, high bounce is acceptable.

Bounce rate is not a direct Google ranking factor, though Google has denied using it as a ranking signal explicitly. However, high bounce rate combined with quick return to SERP (pogo-sticking) is a negative user experience signal that may influence rankings indirectly.