Redefining bounce rate with engaged time

Whether a visitor spends two minutes reading an article or navigates away from the page after a second, traditional web analytics treat both sessions as a “bounce.”

If bounce rate isn’t an accurate representation of user experience, what metric better reflects the relative quality of site visits?

We analyzed nearly 1.6 billion reader sessions in Parse.ly’s network over the course of six months in order to redefine bounce rate in terms of engaged time. This report includes benchmarks for identifying “good” vs. “bad” traffic and identifying the minimum and maximum engagement thresholds for content.

In this Authority Report, you will learn:

• Definitions of four different classification of site visits using engaged time
• The distinctions between “good” and “bad” traffic
• The anatomy of engaged time “heartbeats”
• How engaged time can be used to detect the drop-off rate for a piece of content

Download the Authority Report now to see our findings.

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