Bounce rates and free sites

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

On the 5 recent sites I've done, they've had a bounce rate of 15-18%. Since most of the sites I've done had movie clips, I suspect surfers viewing a clip or two led to a low bounce rate.

Do you have clips on your warning or index page, or do you think because they know they will see movies inside?

[RedCherry]

I've also seen that the bounce rate varies from the source of traffic a LOT. For instance, Tommy's Bookmarks tends on a whole to be higher (probably because he has more galleries then free sites) and Danger Dave and Link O Rama tend to be lower. I had one site with only a 1.08% bounce rate from LOR.

The rest of us sometimes are higher, sometimes lower.

[ArtWilliams]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Do you have clips on your warning or index page, or do you think because they know they will see movies inside?

No, just in the gallery pages. You can see my sig. It has a link to my 5 recent freesites (without recips). Some of the clips I used were a minute long so that will decrease the bounce rate right there.

I was giving this some thought while I was at the grocery store. A high bounce rate by itself doesn't give you much information because it could indicate the surfer immediately clicked through to the sponsor which is, potentially, a good thing. A low bounce rate might mean he's is looking at each and every sample you give him and will never click through. I think that you also need to look at the stats from the sponsor's program to find out the referring URL. If the surfer comes from a freesite with a high bounce rate and came from index.html or main.html then, while still not a sale, you're getting closer to converting.

P.S. Just looked at one sponsor's referring URLs for a day -- 93% came from the index.html or main.html page. Only 7% clicked through from the gallery pages! The sample size was not huge but it seems to be similar to other days.

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

I was giving this some thought while I was at the grocery store. A high bounce rate by itself doesn't give you much information because it could indicate the surfer immediately clicked through to the sponsor which is, potentially, a good thing.

Bounce rates are only surfers, as I understand it, that go to your site, and exit out (bounce out) without clicking any links.

And I agree, in of itself it doesn't mean anything. My problem too is with my AVS sites, NetVerifer does not track where the referring joins came from. So I haven't a clue what is converting my traffic. I get sales, I keep members, but which gallery/free sites/ se link they came from, I don't know. I can look and say, I submitted a free site yesterday, got a sale today, but is it from that free site, a gallery I submitted 2 weeks ago, or a link that is spidered in a search engine? That really drives me crazy.

[ArtWilliams]

Originally Posted by RedCherry

Bounce rates are only surfers, as I understand it, that go to your site, and exit out (bounce out) without clicking any links.

And I agree, in of itself it doesn't mean anything. My problem too is with my AVS sites, NetVerifer does not track where the referring joins came from. So I haven't a clue what is converting my traffic. I get sales, I keep members, but which gallery/free sites/ se link they came from, I don't know. I can look and say, I submitted a free site yesterday, got a sale today, but is it from that free site, a gallery I submitted 2 weeks ago, or a link that is spidered in a search engine? That really drives me crazy.

Google describes "Bounce Rate" as,

"... the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors. The more compelling your landing pages, the more visitors will stay on your site and convert. You can minimize bounce rates by tailoring landing pages to each keyword and ad that you run. Landing pages should provide the information and services that were promised in the ad copy."

It doesn't say whether they close the window, type in a different URL or click on a sponsor link. Who knows.

[RedCherry]

Originally Posted by artwilliams

Google describes "Bounce Rate" as,

"... the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. It doesn't say whether they close the window, type in a different URL or click on a sponsor link. Who knows.

I just looked at a site I submitted on 8/4. I've had 1441 visits from LL so far, 265 clicked through to my AVS site, 1 signup so far.

So that means 18% of the visitors clicked on links, and I'm 1/265 on the traffic that went to the site. Not sure if these are good numbers or not.

Free site shows a 34% bounce. So if it is counting clicks off site as part of the bounce, 16% actually left the site without clicking into it, or clicking on a sponsor site. Does that sound how you are taking it to read Art?

Your are right on clicking from the index page.
Index 229
main 7
gallery 1 - 18
gallery 2 - 11
Most of the traffic is definitely flowing from the index page, at least for this one.