What is the Difference between a Bounce Rate vs Exit Rate

April 20, 2011

Analytics – Bounce Rate vs. Exit % Rate

I regularly get asked what the difference is between bounce rate and exit rate. And I usually forget how to explain it. So here it is, bounce rate vs. exit rate:

Bounce Rate
Bounces / Entrances = Bounce Rate.
“Entrances” are defined as “The number of times visitors entered your site on this page.”
“Bounces” are defined as “The percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).”

Exit Rate (Exit %)
Exits / Pageviews = Exit Rate (exit %)
“Pageviews” are the number of times the page was viewed and “Repeated views of a single page are counted.”
“Exits” are defined as “The number of times visitors exited your site from this page.”

You can see below (screenshot from analytics) how these numbers are calculated.
Bounces / Entrances = Bounce Rate
Exits / Pageviews = Exit Rate (exit %)

Example

Say you had 1 total visitor to a page and this visitor came from a ppc ad.

Example 1:
They clicked the ad, landed on your page A and exit, and didn’t visit a single other page on your web site:
(Page A Bounce Rate = 100% and Page A Exit Rate = 100%).

Example 2:
They clicked the ad, landed on your page A, visited 5 other pages on your site, then they come back to page A and then exit:
(Page A Bounce Rate = 0% and Page A Exit Rate = 50%)
Page A has a 50% (instead of 100%) exit rate because the page was viewed twice and it had 1 exit.

Example 3:
They clicked the ad, but in this case the ad takes them directly to page B. They then click a link that takes them to page A and then they exit:
(Page B Bounce Rate = 0% and Page B Exit Rate = 0%)
(Page A Bounce Rate = 0% and Page A Exit Rate = 100%)