Google Analytics and Bounce Rates Query - Should I block access from foreign countries ?
-
Hi ,
When I look at my google analytics for my UK Website, I can see alot of visits come from outside the UK , i.e Brazil and USA. Both of which give me almost 100% bounce rates from people visiting from there.
I am wondering, if google looks at bounce rates with regards to ranking factors and should I therefore block access to my site from visitors outside the UK ?... Would this help increase my rankings ?
Given that we only serve uk customers, I cant see any benefit of allowing non uk customers the ability to see the site .
what does people think ?
thanks
pete
-
Yes it is (clear), and I'll review the Analytics documentation for more details. Really appreciate you taking the time to reply. ~Mike
-
Hi Mike,
I don't have access to a of pc now. From my memory you first create a filter, and then aply the filter to a new view. You should always keep one view in original state without any filters. Hope this is clear. Hope it is sufficiently clear.
rgds
Dirk
-
Thanks Dirk. That answered the issue I was uncertain about, which was whether blocking visitors from Analytics reports truly prevents them from hitting the site (even an error page), and apparently it doesn't so your answer makes perfect sense.
One more question: Does an Analytics filter automatically apply to all Analytics views/reports for that domain/site, or does a filter have to be assigned to the views I want it to affect (in this case, all of them)?
Thanks for the quick response!
Mike -
Hi Michael
The first thing you should do is to define the geography you are targeting in webmaster tools (If you have a generic tld).
if you would block visitors from Brazil on your site the bounce rate measured by analytics will go down. However, Google is not using your analytics data to measure the bounce rate (at least that is what they claim). As al these people get an error message when they try to visit your site,the real bounce-rate will increase rather than go down, making the situation even worse, you just would not be aware of it.
What you could do is set a custom filter in analytics, showing only the traffic from your target country and apply this filter to a new view. This gives you better insights on the behavior of your target audience.
rgds
Dirk
-
I've got a similar problem with nearly 50% of the traffic to many of my client's sites coming from Brazil. My clients are and will only ever be local, small town operations, so my questions are:
1. Why it's not a good idea to block those visits that are irrelevant to the traffic we want to measure.
2. Bounce rate is considered to play at least some role in the ranking algorithm, or at least I always thought so. If over 50% of my traffic is bouncing because it's bot driven, spam related, etc, shouldn't I be worried about the adverse affect on my bounce rate?Just trying to understand the rules to this game.
Thanks!
Mike -
Many thanks All
Peter
-
I'd like to add to the answers above.
First, I agree - do not block foreign visitors. There are many reasons for this, do not worry about their bounce rates.
Second, and the part I'm adding, is I suggest setting up a Filtered View in your Google Analytics that only tracks your target demographic, in your situation the UK visitors.
This Filtered View will allow you to see more accurate metrics for the people you're targeting and allow you to do a better analysis of your web analytics. Make sure to add that filtered view and not overwrite your unfiltered view, so if you ever do expand into the other geographic locations you can dig into their performance analytics as well.
-
Hi Pete,
Please don't block access to foreigners. You can set the geo-target in Google webmaster tools account, if you have not already done so. It is completely normal with country-specific websites getting traffic from all over the World. A small or probably 1 in a thousand foreign visits might come from UK people traveling abroad. So to conclude, its my honest opinion not to block access to foreigners even the bounce rates might be alarming. Its common and natural and search engine like Google know about this pretty well and there won't be any issue to your website from their end.
Best regards,
Devanur Rafi
-
Blocking access to your site for foreign visitors won't change anything for your "real" bounce rate. The measured bounce rate will decrease in Analytics, but these visitors will still bounce when they get to your website.
If you're using a generic domain extension - you can indicate in Webmastertools that you are targeting the local UK market (if you use a .uk extension this is automatically the case).
I wouldn't worry too much about this bounce rate - as long as the bounce rate (and time/visit - time on page) for your UK visitors is ok
rgds
Dirk
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is there a way to apply the same google analytics filter to multiple properties?
I manage WordPress multiple sites for my clients. Some of these clients are SEO customers. One issue I have with the analytics reports is the occurrence of spam and ghost spam. I know how to create filters to block however there are always more and more. Is there away to export the filter and import it to all the other properties i manage? Or do they just have to be done manually every time i need to block spam?
Reporting & Analytics | | donsilvernail1 -
Conflicting numbers in Google Analytics
I am getting 2 completely different numbers in Google Analytics.According to the graph on my Dashboard organic traffic decreased ~40% comparing June 7 -> June 6.However, when I dig a bit deeper and look at the 2 dates specifically compared to each other I get a `3% increase in traffic.When I look at the traffic on just June 7, I get the number indicating the increase.Any ideas or someone getting similar conflicting numbers??
Reporting & Analytics | | theLotter0 -
Re-branding with Google Analytics
GM Mozzers, I apologize in advance if my description of this issue is confusing, but I'm doing my best here. Anyway, due to legal reasons, one of the publications I manage was forced to change their name. We set-up a 301 redirect from the previous domain and have also set-up an analytics profile for the new domain, however, as it stands, visits to the old domain outnumber those to the new domain 12:1. Is there anyway to set-up my analytics profile to the new URL so that this traffic is being attributed to the new domain and the new site, since, after all, it is a redirect. I hope that I explained this sufficiently. Any and all insight will be very much appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | NiallSmith0 -
Solid Place to learn intermediate-adbanced Google Analytics
Hello Everyone, I've been using Google Analytics for some years now, and I never really used it in an advanced way (alerts, goals, conversions, etc...) I was wondering if there was a good place for me to learn GA so I can start using it to it's full potental. Thanks Zach
Reporting & Analytics | | Zachary_Russell0 -
Wordpress + Google Analytics = Pulling My Hair Out
Hey Mozzers, Quick question for you- I have analytics set-up for a personal site I run and I know, verifiably it's receiving traffic, however, whenever I access my Google Analytics dashboard, it says I've had zero visits. Interestingly, today I had a colleague check the site from a foreign country and I could see the page views (within 15 minutes), however, I could not get any information about the site viewer. I have verified that the Analytics profile is 'receiving data' (which it is) and my Google Webmaster Tools is not reporting any issues? Finally, I went ahead and updated my profile so that it is pulling from 'www.mydomain.com' instead of 'mydomain.com', I don't know if that'll make any difference, but likewise, I didn't want to go and create the 'little kid in the elevator' analogy, where I'm just pressing a bunch of buttons just because they're there. So the only changes I've made thus far were deactivating Yoast's SEO plug-in and manually placing the GA code in the header and updating the 'Website's URL' in the profile settings tab of GA from 'mydomain.com' to 'www.mydomain.com'. With that, I am stumped and praying another one of the esteemed Mozzers out there may be able to help me resolve this. Any thoughts?
Reporting & Analytics | | NiallSmith0 -
Google Analytics - Referral Traffic Question
How Google Analytics determine that some particular web site referred traffic if there is no back link on that site?
Reporting & Analytics | | DiamondJewelryEmpire1 -
No Social Sources in Google Analytics - what am I doing wrong?
Hello Everyone, I'm having a strange issue: I DO NOT have in my Google Analytics the "Social" tab under the Traffic Sources category. Look at the first image of this post: http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-social-reports-8138 How do you "get" that to show? Hope somebody has this issue and can help, Thanks a lot, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | | pwpaneuro0 -
Google Analytics | REAL TIME
So I noticed today that there is now Real Time Data: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html and I cannot figure out how to access this.
Reporting & Analytics | | joseph.chambers1