Bounce rate measures single-page sessions where someone arrives on your site and exits without triggering another request to the server. If 60 out of 100 visitors leave after viewing only the landing page, your bounce rate is 60%. Google Analytics 4 changed the game by introducing engagement rate instead, which flips the metric—tracking sessions with meaningful interaction rather than exits. For SEO, bounce rate matters as a diagnostic tool, not a direct ranking factor. Google's John Mueller confirmed they don't use bounce rate from Analytics in rankings, but user behavior patterns do influence how search algorithms assess page quality. A blog post answering a specific question might have an 80% bounce rate because users got their answer and left satisfied—that's fine. An e-commerce category page with 80% bounce rate likely has UX problems, misleading meta descriptions, or slow load times. Typical bounce rates vary wildly by page type. Landing pages often sit at 70-90%, blog content at 65-85%, service pages at 40-60%, and checkout flows should stay under 30%. Ottawa SEO sees the best results when bounce rate is viewed alongside time-on-page and conversion metrics—a 75% bounce rate with 3-minute average sessions and 8% conversions tells a completely different story than 75% bounce with 12-second sessions. What kills bounce rate: slow page speed (over 3 seconds), intrusive popups before content loads, mobile formatting issues, clickbait titles that don't match content, and auto-play videos. What actually matters more: did the visitor accomplish their goal? Track scroll depth, button clicks, and form starts in GA4 to understand true engagement. If your bounce rate suddenly spikes, check for tracking code breaks, bot traffic inflating numbers, or recent site changes that broke mobile layouts. For most sites, fixing Core Web Vitals and matching search intent does more for SEO than obsessing over bounce rate percentages.