Very high bounce rate on a subscription website

[topkapit]

Hello - we realised that our online games subscription website has a very high bounce rate - over 60%. I'm wondering if the reason is ONLY that you require a login to access most of the content on the website OR ALSO that the registered users log in directly via the homepage and hence MAYBE they are treated as if they left the website (since the spiders cannot access password protected areas).
Could you let me know if my thinking is right or maybe there is another reasons for the high bounce rate?
Cheers

[EGOL]

There are at least 100 reasons why visitors might bounce off of your site....

Looking for free games

Looking for sports games

Looking for trivia games

Your design is ugly

They don't understand what to do

It seems to me that you are not thinking very hard.

[topkapit]

Sure, there are lots of reasons why the visitor could leave the website straightaway like not relevant content, don't want to register (the registration is free), not liking the website etc.
I'm interested what you think about the second part of my question:
Could the reason be also that the registered users log in directly via the homepage and hence MAYBE they are treated as if they left the website (since the spiders cannot access password protected areas).
Cheers

[EGOL]

The answer to that question depends upon how your analytics works.

If you are using Google Analytics and your code is on the pages behind the password (and you can see visitor activity on them in the analytics site) then visitors logging in should not count as a bounce.

If you are using log files it should record file loads and with that method pages behind a password will be recorded and not count as a bounce with a visitor logs in.

[EGOL]

Here is a question... when a visitor is on your homepage the url will be http://www.yourdomain.com. After the visitor logs in does the url change to https://www.yourdomain.com

[psdel]

How prominent is subscription box on your webpage is also one factor. Another factor is where they are comming from. If they are being mislead to your website for things your website dont offer than obviously they would be disapointed and leave, I hope this is not the case though.

[SearchBliss]

I would also take a look at how many of these bounces are NEW visitors. If that's high, then it's your site not giving them what they were looking for when they arrived.

[himanshu160]

Sure, there are lots of reasons why the visitor could leave the website straightaway like not relevant content, don't want to register (the registration is free), not liking the website etc.
I'm interested what you think about the second part of my question:
Could the reason be also that the registered users log in directly via the homepage and hence MAYBE they are treated as if they left the website (since the spiders cannot access password protected areas).
Cheers

one of my website was password protected. Only home page was visible to both (unregistered) visitors and search engines. However i had analytics code installed on all the pages and i was getting stats for password protected pages also in my analytics. And yes, registered users log in via home page is not treated as if they left the website.

Many people like to browse the website first. Want to make sure whether the site is worth registering. For the same reason, i made most of my website available to all the visitors. Guess what? I have seen record number of new registrations. So i would suggest you, to make most of your website available to all the visitors. Give people a chance to look around and decide. This will not only reduce your bounce rate but will also help in getting subscriptions.