Bounce rate: definition, formula and what's a good bounce rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visits in which someone left almost straight away: they opened one page, didn't interact with it and closed it. A high bounce rate usually means the page didn't answer the question people came with — or that the traffic wasn't the right audience in the first place.

Formula

Bounce rate = bounced visits / total visits × 100%

2,000 visits with 560 bounces gives a bounce rate of 28%.

The catch: every analytics tool defines a "bounce" differently, so you can't compare numbers across tools.

How different tools define a bounce

In GA4, bounce rate is simply the inverse of engagement rate: 100% minus the share of engaged sessions.

LightMetrica also looks at goals: if someone lands on a page and taps your phone number right away, that's a successful visit, not a bounce. Time is based on how long the page was actually visible.

What's a good bounce rate?

There's no universal benchmark — it depends on the page type and on how your tool defines a bounce:

• Single-page definition (Universal Analytics style) produces high numbers; 40–60% is common and content sites often go higher.
• Engagement-based definitions (GA4, or a 15-second threshold) give noticeably lower numbers, because people who read for a while aren't counted as bounces.
• Blog posts, documentation, contact pages naturally bounce more: people find the answer and leave. That isn't necessarily bad.
• Online stores and SaaS sites bounce less: buying or signing up takes several pages.
• Paid traffic usually bounces more than organic search because of accidental and curious clicks.

The most useful comparison is with yourself: the same page last month, the same traffic source last week. A sudden jump is a signal; the absolute value is just context.

Why bounce rate suddenly goes up

• A new traffic source, such as a broad ad campaign.
• Slow loading, especially on mobile.
• A broken layout or form after a site update.
• Bots that slip past filters.
• Tracking changes — goals or events added or removed.

How to reduce bounce rate

1. Make sure the page matches the search query or ad that brings people there.
2. Speed it up: heavy images and third-party scripts drive early exits.
3. Offer a next step — related content, a clear call to action, contact options.
4. Break bounce rate down by page and source. The problem is usually in one or two places, not site-wide.

You can see bounce rate per page and per source in LightMetrica with no setup. Related metrics: average session duration and pages per visit.

FAQ

Is a high bounce rate always bad? No. If someone opens your contact page, finds the address and leaves, the page did its job. Bounces matter when the page is supposed to lead somewhere — a purchase, a sign-up, more content.

Why is GA4's bounce rate lower than Universal Analytics showed? Because GA4 counts any session longer than 10 seconds, with a key event or with a second page view as engaged. Universal Analytics counted every single-page session as a bounce.

Does bounce rate affect SEO? Search engines don't use the bounce rate from your analytics. But the causes of high bounce rates — irrelevant content, slow pages — hurt both users and rankings.

How do I keep my own visits out of the bounce rate? Exclude yourself from tracking. In LightMetrica, open your site once with ?lightmetric=ignore.