Definition of Bound Rate and Exit Rate
Do you know that “bounce rate” and “exit rate” are different terminology? Let’s start by understanding the definition defined by Google.
Bounce Rate: The percentage that was the only session for all sessions that start with the page.
Exit Rate: The percentage that was the last in the session for all pageviews to the page.
To restate the definition above, we can say that Exit rate is the percentage of visits that were the last in the session while bounce rate is the percentage of visits that were the only one of the session.
In order to be clearer on the definition, we have to know what “bounce” means first. A bounce happens when a visitor enters the page and exits without visiting other pages on the website or interacting with any of the elements on the page such as completing a CTA.
Bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of bounces by the total number of pageviews to a page. On the other hand, exit rate looks at the number of people who exit your website after landing on a page and compares it to the total number of views the page received.
Are you still confused? It’s okay!!
Let’s imagine that a user entered a page and realized it was the wrong page and exits immediately from the page! This would be recorded as a bounce. While a user entered a website and viewed several pages and left would be considered as an exit.
Remember!!!! All bounces are exits but not all exits are bounces.
Let me give you an example, we can consider a simple website with four pages: A, B, C, and D. Imagine that these different sessions to this website over the course of a week.
- Monday: New Visitor > A > EXIT
- Tuesday: New Visitor > A > B > C > EXIT
- Wednesday: New Visitor > A > B > EXIT
- Thursday: New Visitor > D > EXIT
- Friday: New Visitor > C > D > EXIT
Guess how many bounces occur out of the above five sessions??
The answer is two! There were only two bounces! Monday and Thursday!
You might wondering WHY?? Remembered we say a bounce occurs when a visitor enters the page and exits without visiting other pages on the website or interacting with any of the elements on the page!
Monday and Thursday were the only two days where the visitor exited as soon as they entered the site, and the visitor visited at least two pages before exiting on every other day.
Resource: Adlift.com
This knowledge base article provided by Yu-Hsuan Chueh
