Understand bounce rate and visit duration

What Matomo counts as a bounce

A bounce is a visit with one page view and no further tracked interaction. Opening a second page or triggering a tracked download click, for example, adds another interaction. For the whole website, bounce rate is the share of these visits out of all visits. For an entry page, it uses visits that started on that page.

Consider a contact page: someone reads the phone number and calls later. The website visit may appear as a bounce even though the person achieved their aim. The same metric needs a different interpretation on a page intended to lead into a registration form.

Why a visit can show 0 seconds

With the usual tracking setup, Matomo calculates visit duration from recorded action timestamps. If it receives only one page view and no later timing information, the default duration for that visit is 0 seconds. This is not a measurement of reading time.

For example, the first page view is recorded at 09:00 and another at 09:02. The two actions are two minutes apart. Those timestamps alone cannot tell you how long the second page remains open afterwards.

A long recorded duration also says little on its own about attentive reading. An open tab may be in the background. Read duration alongside the content viewed and the recorded actions.

Separate visit duration, time on page and exits

Visit duration covers the whole visit. Average time on page concerns an individual page. A short time on a navigation page may fit its purpose of taking people elsewhere; a detailed article would usually call for a longer read.

Exit rate concerns the page where visits end. Visitors may have viewed other pages beforehand. Bounce rate concerns visits that start on the entry page being examined and end without another tracked interaction.

Investigate a page

1. In Matomo, open Behaviour > Entry Pages and choose a period with enough visits for your question. Check the number of entries as well as bounce rate. With a small number of visits, one extra interaction can noticeably change the rate.
2. Check what the page is meant to achieve. Reading an answer, opening a file and starting a form are different tasks. Assess the page against its intended next step.
3. Under Acquisition, review the traffic sources. A new campaign may change the mix of visits. Where possible, compare the same page over similar periods with comparable sources.
4. For a recent test visit, open Visitors > Visits Log to check which actions were recorded. You can see, for example, whether an expected download click appears as another action.

Account for changes to tracking

If a form starts being tracked as an event, it produces additional recorded timestamps. Bounce rate and duration may then change even when people use the page in a similar way. Note tracking changes and account for them in before-and-after comparisons.

You can export the Matomo report to document the check. Record the website, date range and page you examined.