Typical Bounce Rate for those with High Rankings?

[ericwoo]

My bounce rates got significantly worst when I changed my design (which I think looks 10 times cleaner, professional, & easier to navigate). With that my rankings fell off the face of the earth.

For those with high rankings for keywords having say at least 15,000 searches/ month, what is your bounce rate?

[tstolber]

A bounce rate of
50% or less is excellent
60-70% is typical
70-80% is poor
80%+ is very bad

So, bounce rate is a good indicator of usability so I would suggest re-thinking your design and trying some A/B split testing.
However, I have experienced a situation where the design change caused problems with analytics, so check that you are really recording correct stats (look at your user logs and create a secondary analytics logging method).

Sometimes you have to let go of a design that you like and look at your data - in the early 2000s - this was convincing a CEO that the latest flash logo that danced around screen for 60 seconds is not what people want to see. This sounds obvious but people hand on to a design out of emotion and don't use data and logic to make decisions.

[chiragparekh]

My bounce rates got significantly worst when I changed my design (which I think looks 10 times cleaner, professional, & easier to navigate). With that my rankings fell off the face of the earth.

For those with high rankings for keywords having say at least 15,000 searches/ month, what is your bounce rate?

you are not dropped due to bounce rate as Bounce rate is not a ranking factor. You have faced expected drop due to website redesign. why? Because your webpages were in Google index and had been ranking for particular keywords. now due to change in URL, Google might not found landing page for your particular keywords (this case Google sees either 404 or 301 status code when it crawls your website). Even if you have set 301 redirect you have to face drop for a while (till link juice and relevancy is passed).

As you said your bounce rate is increased, you might have not set the 301 redirection from older pages to their corresponding new pages.

[KernelPanic]

My first guess is that you are not recording data accurately. Check to make sure you have only 1 set of analytics code installed and that it is installed correctly.

[ParmveerSingh]

There might be two reasons :

1. Your returning visitors could not recognize you in new face. You might have changed the location of menu items or the terms.

2. You might have changed the urls -- if you did so you must fix it immediately, you would be hit severely in SERPs.

[rookieseo]

My bounce rates got significantly worst when I changed my design (which I think looks 10 times cleaner, professional, & easier to navigate). With that my rankings fell off the face of the earth.

For those with high rankings for keywords having say at least 15,000 searches/ month, what is your bounce rate?

Design does not guarantee. In my best site (oryginal design, I spend most time) my bounc rate is 50-60%. On my weak site with standard cms theme I have bounce rate 27%.

[vkonnect]

My bounce rates got significantly worst when I changed my design (which I think looks 10 times cleaner, professional, & easier to navigate). With that my rankings fell off the face of the earth.

For those with high rankings for keywords having say at least 15,000 searches/ month, what is your bounce rate?

Well when you change the design of your website, there are more chances that your bounce rate decreases, and this is mainly because people are more relaxed with your old design. No matter how clearer it is, returning visitors will surely find it much mroe confusing, as they won't find everything in its place as it was before. Just take the example of Facebook, Timeline is surely very awesome in a variety of ways, but in beginning people hated it alot and wanted to switch to the previous version, but as the time passes they started to love it, even more than the previous one! So just stick with your new design, sooner or later you are going to get it back! Cheers!

[ericwoo]

So just stick with your new design, sooner or later you are going to get it back! Cheers!

I thought that also, but it has been about 6 months now. I really don't want to go back to my old design- it was horrible like something from the 90's. My new design is just as simple but cleaner and more professional looking.

[Glenn Kilpatric]

Did you checkout kernal panics advice ?

[DarrenHaye]

I thought that also, but it has been about 6 months now. I really don't want to go back to my old design- it was horrible like something from the 90's. My new design is just as simple but cleaner and more professional looking.

Did you change URLs with the new design?

It's totally dependents on your sites niche as to what a good bounce rate would be.. it sounds like you may have been ranking for more visitor retentive keywords previously though if your bounce rate used to be much lower.

[ericwoo]

Did you checkout kernal panics advice ?

Yes, but I don't know how someone can record the analytics incorrectly. I only have one tracking code.

Did you change URLs with the new design?

it sounds like you may have been ranking for more visitor retentive keywords previously though if your bounce rate used to be much lower.

The urls all stayed the same. I was thinking that also because I was ranking better before. I am just concerned that since the bounce rates continue to go up, Google was lowering me in the ranks.

I am shocked how my site was #1 for years with my primary keyword and now am not even in the first few pages. It's crazy! so I recently submitted a reconsideration request even though I didn't see any warnings.

Update: Guys I know I sound like a annoying whiner so much. Sorry about that but chit-chatting it here helps me collect my thoughts and hear what others have to say.

[Test-ok]

I don't know if sending in that reconsideration request was a good idea, if may have flagged your site.
But it's water under the bridge now.

[realityhack]

My bounce rates got significantly worst when I changed my design (which I think looks 10 times cleaner, professional, & easier to navigate). With that my rankings fell off the face of the earth.

Nobody cares what YOU think. If your users prefer the old look roll back.
If that doesn't correct the problem it is likely due to some other factor.
Bounce rate has nothing to do with ranking... but ranking position can effect bounce rates. Look into that ranking issue.

For those with high rankings for keywords having say at least 15,000 searches/ month, what is your bounce rate?

I always get confused when somebody says their site dropped from x to y on Google, or that their keyword has X volume.
I run well over 1k keywords. All with different bounce rates etc.
Average I run about 50% But that goes up a lot for some keywords, especially information terms where the person lands on the correct page, gets what they want, and leaves.

As for how you can mess up analytics, are you using GA? Do you know what your time out is set to? Statistics are only meaningful if you know exactly what they mean.

Edit to add stuff because I am an idiot and forgot.

[KernelPanic]

Yes, but I don't know how someone can record the analytics incorrectly. I only have one tracking code.

Is it in the head? How old is the code, Google updated a few years ago.

[ericwoo]

I don't know if sending in that reconsideration request was a good idea, if may have flagged your site.
But it's water under the bridge now.

Yea, I was thinking that also. But then I realized- I don't really have much to lose anymore. I went from #1 on the 1st page to nowhere listed with the first 25+ pages. I got tired of looking through the results!

I thought I read somewhere that there was some cases that they forgot to send messages about a manual penalty.

The analytics is in the head and is new also. Thanks