Jan
28
To target underscore blank or not – the bounce effect?
January 28, 2010 | 3 Comments
Now this heading may seem a little confusing or make no sense at all. I will explain what this is all about. In web analytics we have a measurement called bounce rate which is an important measurement to determine the quality of the traffic to your site. Bounce rate measures the number of people who come to your site and leave from the same page they entered without clicking on further.
My dilema is all about opening links in a new tab/window or not. Firstly for user experience and secondly for bounce rates.
According to Wikipedia, Avinash Kaushik states:
My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. I stress that this is my personal analysis based on my experience, but hopefully it gives you a feel for what you are shooting for.
Now this really depends on the type of site that you are running and what you are trying to achieve. The standard bounce rate for a blog is apparently between 50% to 75%. For example a blogger with a loyal following who stays on the blog for 4 or 5 minutes to read the entire latest post and then leaves without clicking to another page, because they have read it before, is still achieving their goals. And yet they may have a bounce rate higher than the standard range.
I have been trying different methods to reduce my bounce rate, which is comfortably in the standard range and occasionally goes below. There is one method that I really can’t decide on which direction to take.
When you have a link in your post to another website you can add target=“_blank” to make that link open in a new tab and prevent people bouncing off your site. I have researched this quite a bit and fail to find consensus on this. Some SEO people will tell you to do this, as bounce rate affects your Google rankings, and therefore, you need to force it. Others tell you this is antiquated, and that most people know how to right click a link if they want to open in it in another window instead of leaving your page, and you are treating them like idiots by forcing this.
I have tried both methods, but recently have tended to not use the target underscore, feeling perhaps it is a bit antiquated. Though every odd article I do add it just for testing. I am not 100% sure of this decision and wonder if I am making a blunder. My bounce rate has remained healthy, but could it be better?
I would be interested to hear others views on this little method and it’s effect on bounce rate.
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Just an update: I found a pretty cool plugin called pretty Links that creates shorter urls using your own domain. So it seems I can go back to providing the page link rather than the home page!
Hi Brian, when measuring bounce there is a max 30 minute session limit (or so I have read about Google analytics) before you have bounced. In other words if you do not leave the site by typing another url, clicking a link to an external site that opens in the same window or pushing the back button and leaving the site within 30 minutes and you have not left the page you are on you will be registered as a bounce.
Now there is a possibility that this is measured differently by different tools — I am not sure.
I am not 100% sure what you mean. If you mean why I have a link to an article about a problem I have (blub) and it only shows as a summary on the front page and you have to click to read the full article; there are a number of reasons. I am going to assume this is what you mean and explain it.
First reason is that I have a few posts on my home page and I have tested putting the full articles up and also tested expanding them on front page and it just makes the home page too long. Also seems people don’t tend to read the full article — I think so much writing is overwhelming.
Second reason is that I provide links to other relevant articles which do not show on the home page, but on the article page.
Third reason is that it reduces your bounce rate in Google analytics, which effects your rankings.
Fourth reason that I link to home page in Linkedin instead of article page, is that the post url is too long and a few groups are not accepting tiny urls due to risk of malice software.
I have done quite a lot of testing of different ways and have found this works best.
If there was a more secure way of creating tiny urls I would certainly use them.
And lastly why do I link to a blub: it is so that people can fully understand my dilemma without a word limited. This article is really about trying to get views on this as I like to make decisions looking at things from a 360 degree view.
I hope this helps you to understand the methods to my madness.
I am new to blogging. I had heard a different definition of bounce. I thought it was people who went to your site and immediately left. If people stayed and read the article, they didn’t register as bounced. Perhaps I am wrong.
I am also curious whey you have a link to a blub, then we have to click on another link, to get the whole article. I have seen this before. Is this to improve bounce rate?
I have only been at this for 27 days, so I am still learning.
Brian Meeks
http://extremelyaverageone.blogspot.com/