Decent Bounce Rate but extremely low visit duration and page depth?

[JPS89]

I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding the Bounce Rate, Visit Duration, and Page Depth metrics in Google Analytics. GA is reporting that my site's bounce rate is pretty decent - currently 36%.

Yet when I drill down into audience behavior engagement, I am seeing that the vast majority of visit durations are 0-10 seconds, and the page depth is only 1 for a majority of visitors.

If this were the case, wouldn't my bounce rate be higher?

[crackingmedia]

Hi

How many pages are being measured on your site? An average site bounce rate of 36% is good but it is only an average. You really need to look at individual page bounce rates to see where issues may be occurring.

That you say the vast majority of pages are seeing visit duration of 0-10 seconds and page depth of 1 would suggest you may have a small number of high performing pages, but many are under performing.

For a low page count that could correlate to a low average bounce rate, but as I say to really need to measure page performance at a page level rather than a site level.

I hope that helps,
Peter

[George.Fanucci]

Interesting... one of my clients has the opposite problem. Bounce rate is over 50% yet average pages per visit is over 4 and average time per page is over 3 minutes. Peter's suggestion seems to be a very good one. Check individual pages to see who needs fixing the most. Put more oil on the squeaky wheels.