Bounce rate is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave ("bounce") rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. Bounce rate is calculated by counting the number of single page visits and dividing that by the total visits. It is then represented as a percentage of total visits. Bounce rate is a measure of "stickiness." The thinking being that an effective website will engage visitors deeper into the website. Encouraging visitors to continue with their visit. It is expressed as a percentage and represents the proportion of single page visits to total visits. Bounce rate (%) = Visits that access only a single page (#) ÷ Total visits (#) to the website. Purpose Bounce rates can be used to help determine the effectiveness or performance of an entry page at generating the interest of visitors. An entry page with a low bounce rate means that the page effectively causes visitors to view more pages and continue deeper into the website. High bounce rates typically indicate that the website is not doing a good job of attracting the continued interest of visitors. That means visitors only view single pages without looking at others or taking some form of action within the site before a specified time period. Interpretation of the bounce rate measure should be relevant to a website's business objectives and definitions of conversion, as having a high bounce rate is not always a sign of poor performance. On sites where an objective can be met without viewing more than one page, for example on websites sharing specific knowledge on some subject (dictionary entry, specific recipe), the bounce rate would not be as meaningful for determining conversion success. In contrast, the bounce rate of an e-commerce site could be interpreted in correlation with the purchase conversion rate, providing the bounces are considered representative of visits where no purchase was made. Typically, Bounce Rate for e-commerce websites is in the range of 20% to 45%, with top performers operating at a 36% average Bounce Rate. Construction A bounce occurs when a website visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages before a specified session-timeout occurs. There is no industry standard minimum or maximum time by which a visitor must leave