Exit Rate

What Is Exit Rate?

A high exit rate is not automatically bad: on a thank-you page after a purchase, it’s actually desired. It becomes problematic on pages meant to guide users further — such as category or product pages in an online store. Combined with dwell time and scroll depth, exit rate helps identify weak points in your conversion funnel and address them in a targeted way.

Exit rate refers to the percentage of all page views on a given page where a visitor leaves the website without visiting another internal page. A high exit rate on certain pages can mean the visitor achieved their goal — or that the content was unsatisfactory. Exit rate differs from bounce rate: bounce rate applies only to users who leave without any interaction; exit rate also includes users who visited other pages before this one.

Technically, exit rate is measured by analytics tools like Google Analytics and can be calculated for individual pages, specific audiences, or time periods. A high exit rate is not automatically bad — on a contact or thank-you page, a high exit rate is normal and expected. It becomes problematic when exit rates are very high on category or product pages, which indicates poor layout or irrelevant content.

In practice, website owners should analyze exit rates by page type and combine them with related metrics (dwell time, scroll depth, internal link clicks). A high exit rate on a landing page with short dwell time may mean visitors leave quickly — possibly because the page isn’t mobile-optimized or load time is poor. Internal linking optimization and content quality improvements can reduce exit rates and lead to better user signals for Google.