(Entry was posted by Dave Elliott on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 04/24/2014).

My home page has a bounce rate of 84%.

I have noticed a strange anomaly in my GA and am struggling to pin it down. Any help would be much appreciated!

Direct traffic to the home page has a bounce rate of 84% this is 10% or so higher than the site average(for all traffic). Any ideas as to what could be the cause?

I would have thought this would be very low on account of it being bookmarks or people typing the address in!

There is only one analytics code on the site, there are no events.(from a quick look around incorrectly configured events can cause an issue)

They have only sent one email news letter in the calender year(the time frame i am currently investigating) and most of the links on them go to other pages.

New users account for 87% of the traffic(which is weird) new sessions are about 22%(these figures make no sense to me!!!)

Any ideas for things to check would be awesome, this has me confused. A tube of smarties goes to the winner.?

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OUR ANSWERS

Answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Panelists.

Micah Fisher Kirshner: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2013/09/05/filter-bots-google-analytics/#sr=g&m=o&cp=or&ct=-tmc&st=%28opu%20qspwjefe%29&ts=1398341870 FYI for this information on the MSN bot and others.

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

Dave Elliott: I have noticed a strange anomaly in my GA and am struggling to pin it down. Any help would be much appreciated!

Direct traffic to the home page has a bounce rate of 84% this is 10% or so higher than the site average(for all traffic). Any ideas as to what could be the cause?

I would have thought this would be very low on account of it being bookmarks or people typing the address in!

There is only one analytics code on the site, there are no events.(from a quick look around incorrectly configured events can cause an issue)

They have only sent one email news letter in the calender year(the time frame i am currently investigating) and most of the links on them go to other pages.

New users account for 87% of the traffic(which is weird) new sessions are about 22%(these figures make no sense to me!!!)

Any ideas for things to check would be awesome, this has me confused. A tube of smarties goes to the winner.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner: Check the server domain or network services... if you find things like msn.com with 100% bounce rate (and a lot of traffic) that's an example of bad bots running JavaScript.
Tim Capper: I had Internet explore version 9 & 11 showing up for me recently, drilling into it, it was all bots ;
Dave Elliott: It certainly looks like ie is the main culprit. +Micah Fisher-Kirshner what screens do I need in analytics for that? Not ones I am familiar with.
Micah Fisher-Kirshner: screens as in filtering it out? or something else?
Dave Elliott: As in how do I get to to server domain & network services. Don't know either of those tabs in ga.
Tim Capper: In the section : Audience >> Technology >> Network

You should notice the culprits right away 100% and 00.00.00 ;time on site
Micah Fisher-Kirshner: 100% bounce rate is always 0 time on site FYI ;)

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 04/24/2014).

My home page has a bounce rate of 84%.

Answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Panelists.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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