Ajax calls to content making site have high bounce rate in Google Analytics

Question

Ive got a 1 page ajax style website, its actually got about 15 pages, but when a user clicks on each page the content is loaded into the page they are already on via ajax.

A user can visit domain.com/ or domain.com/about-us and still load the other content via ajax.

The problem is that im getting a very high bounce rate reporting in Google analytics usually between 75-85% (the site it self is liked by users and generates many calls, so im convinced because of the structure of the site loading content via ajax, that they only ever visit 1 page, is causing the high bounce rate). Im worried that the high bounce rate will be effecting the sites ranking.

Is there a way to let Google Analytics know that users are visiting other pages an bring the bounce rate down ?

Answer 1

Yes, but you'll need to manually configure Google Analytics to track virtual pageviews. When adding the tracking script, you'll need to add a page parameter to the send method that specifies the pathname (i.e. /about-us), which you would update dynamically when the AJAX calls are made and the user transitions to a new pathname. It should look something like this: ga('send', 'pageview', '/about-us'). You can find all of the specifics on Google Developers' Single Page Application Tracking Guide.