I just started using a scroll metrics script in Google Analytics to track how far people scrolled on my pages, and look what happened to bounce rate!
I guess Analytics considers a bounce as someone who comes to your page and then leaves without sending a query or event to analytics again.
Scroll Metrics (Measurements) by using Event Tracking in Google Analytics
Just copy and paste this code before the Google Analytics code. This code works by sending a 1,0 to Google Analytics anytime someone scrolls to a certain % of the page. The default is set at 50%. You can change this to any percent.
You can also change the labeling. You can see event tracking in GA in the Content section, then click on "Events".
script src='http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery/jquery-1.3.2.min.js' type='text/javascript'>/script
script type='text/javascript'>/*
var IsDuplicateScrollEvent = 0;$(document).ready(function ()
{SetupGoogleAnalyticsTrackEvents();});function SetupGoogleAnalyticsTrackEvents()
{TrackEventsForMinimumPageScroll();}function TrackEventsForMinimumPageScroll()
{$(window).scroll(function(){var scrollPercent = GetScrollPercent();
if(scrollPercent > 50) /*Change here for scroll percent*/
{if(IsDuplicateScrollEvent == 0){IsDuplicateScrollEvent = 1;
TrackEvent("Scroll", "50", document.location.href);} /*Change labels here*/
}});}function GetScrollPercent()
{var bottom = $(window).height() + $(window).scrollTop();
var height = $(document).height();return Math.round(100*bottom/height);}
function TrackEvent(Category, Action, Label){_gaq.push(['_trackEvent',Category, Action, Label]);} /* ]]> */
/script
This code came from this blog which has been removed for some reason?!?!? But thanks to those people!!!
***In order to get this code to work, be sure to add the "<" around the script tags. Good luck. Comment for Questions!
If you would prefer not to affect the bounce rate simply because someone scrolls and sends an event, then you can now configure the even to be 'non-interactive' by adding the opt_noninteraction parameter.
There's a GA blog post explaining it here: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/10/non-interaction-events-wait-what.html
Whether to do this or not depends on the nature of the site. For example, on a blog it would make sense to use the version of the code above -- it's common for people to only view one page of a blog and if they scroll down to read it all that's good and not the equivalent of a bounce. At the other extreme something like a special offer landing page on an ecommerce site might involve scrolling to see all the content. But unless the visitor did continued on to view more of the site, you would probably consider it a bounce even if they did scroll down.