What Is Bounce Rate?

Written by Coursera Staff • Updated on

What is bounce rate, and why does it matter? Learn the basics of this critical metric for website performance.

[Featured image] A website owner checks their page's bounce rate on a laptop in an office setting.

Bounce rate refers to the number of people who leave a page without performing any action, like clicking a link, completing a purchase, or visiting a second page. In other words, they land on a page and then leave. The bounce rate is typically measured as a percentage. 

A good bounce rate is around 40 percent or lower, depending on the industry [1]. A lower percentage is preferable because it means the content you’re creating on behalf of a brand or product resonates in some way with users. 

A 70 percent bounce rate means that 70 percent of users navigated away from the page, while 30 percent stayed on the page and performed an action or moved to a second page. Similarly, a 48 percent bounce rate shows that 48 percent of visitors navigated away, while 52 percent stayed on the page. 

Related terms

  • Clickthrough rate (CTR)

  • Content marketing

  • SEO marketing

  • Omnichannel marketing

  • Brand marketing

  • Influencer marketing

Learn more about the fundamentals of marketing

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave a webpage without taking any action. A lower bounce rate is generally better, indicating that your webpage content is engaging visitors.

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Article sources

  1. Semrush. “What Is Bounce Rate & What Is a Good Bounce Rate?, https://www.semrush.com/blog/bounce-rate/.” Accessed May 10, 2024.

Updated on
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Coursera Staff

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