This article provides a comparison between bounces, single access, and single page visits, although their names and perceived definitions may appear similar, their actual functions are very different.
- Bounces are defined as the number of visits to your site that contain a single image request. If a user comes to your site and fires more than a single image request, even a page refresh, they aren't counted as a bounce. If "count page reloads" is enabled in Ad Hoc Analysis, image requests flagged as reloads are omitted. Visits consisting of one image request + reloads is considered a bounce in this specific case.
- Single Access
- In Reports & Analytics, single access is defined as the number of visits to your site that contained a single unique variable value (most commonly Page Name). Provided the variable value in question does not change, they can fire many image requests and still count toward Single Access.
- In Ad Hoc Analysis, single access is defined as the number of visits that consisted of a single page view (and possibly one or more custom link image requests).
- Single Page Visits is a metric used specifically in ad hoc analysis, though there is also a report with a similar name in reports & analytics. If you have ad hoc reporting set to count page reloads, it reports closer to Bounces. If you have set ad hoc reporting to not count page reloads, it reports closer to Single Access.
There are two types of Bounce Rate metrics available:
- Bounce Rate available as a standard metric is the percentage of users who didn't make it past that single image request on your site.
- Bounce Rate applied as a calculated metric is defined by the end user. The most common bounce rate calculated metric is Single Access divided by entries.