Bounce rate went up 20 x since new theme…?

  • Resolved monochrome

    (@monochrome)


    15 years, 2 months ago

    Since i installed a new theme, my bounce rate went up from 3% to 60-70%. Looking at the rest of my statistics i have no clue what caused this. The only thing changed on the exact date my bounce rate went up, is a new theme.

    – The theme looks roughly the same, so nothing shocking…
    – Visitor numbers are still growing, like before….
    – Website loads even faster than before….

    I’m not sure if the numbers in google analytics show the correct numbers or maybe the Google Analytics plugin conflicts somehow with the theme?

    Does anyone know what might have caused this… or anyone had similar problems?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Bounce rates vary wildly depending on what industry you’re in, but a 3% bounce rate seems incredibly low to me. Almost unbelievably low in fact, so I’d question whether that was correct or not first of all. Your previous theme wasn’t loading a second page/ad pop-up or doing a redirect or anything that would skew the stat somehow perhaps?

    If it is legit though, well done to you. Would love to see your site and get some tips!

    A 3% bounce rate is definitely … well, pretty much impossible unless the people on your site are your employees or something.

    A 60-70% bounce rate isn’t all that bad. If we can achieve 50% we’re doing pretty darn good.

    Like alism said, I’d be wondering if your previous bounce rate was the one that was skewed.

    Thread Starter monochrome

    (@monochrome)

    My weblog is about watches (www.monochrome.nl) and it’s just some personal views on watches and the watch industry. So my visitors are people who probably have the same watch-fettish that i have.

    The bounce rate has been around 2-3% for a year and changed on exactly the same day i changed to the new theme.

    I know the 2-3% is incredibly low… However it has been so low with the two previous themes.

    Ok, well if you take a look at an old cached page of your previous theme, it appears that you’ve had the Google Analytics tracking code in your page twice – once at the bottom of the HEAD tag, courtesy of the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin, and once again at the very bottom of the page (so it’s probably been hardcoded into the footer.php of that theme at some point).

    As the code is firing twice, your 3% bounce rate is then wrong as it looks like each page is being visited twice.

    Thread Starter monochrome

    (@monochrome)

    Thanx Alism !!

    That’s the answer… Now i know what it was, i can sleep better ??

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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