Bounce rate and PDFs

About 25% of my visitors go to pdf docs after landing on the website. As the pdf does not have analytics code this seems to count as a "bounce".

I have looked through google instructions and they have some code (shown here) ...

<a href="http://www.example.com/files/map.pdf" onClick="javascript: pageTracker._trackPageview('/downloads/map'); ">

... that tracks visitors who click on the pdf so this will show up in analytics reports.

BUT, by using this code will it also prevent visits to the pdf document counting as a bounce?

The only other alternative I can think of is adding an intermediate page (with analytics code) that then links to the pdf doc, however if that intermediate page then becomes a landing page (which it will with time) then the problem is still there.

Does anyone have other ideas / suggestions / comments?

 

such numbers and stats are for ego only - made by "paper-tigers" for "paper-tigers" - but in real life of little or NO value at all!
important is that YOU alone know from your direct access-stats that people found what they needed and thus that your site visitors are happy and most likely returning visitors.
I most rarely use G analytics and trust far more my own much more accurate access_log stats
i see what people wanted and got and that alone counts.
bounce rates are of little to no value:
example
there are sires that offer ONE complete answer to a precise question - precise example webster. people search for the definition of ONE word, find 1 page to get a complete answer and then leave that site.
is that now a bad site or an excellent site.

another example:
ppl may search something that appears to be on your site
they can NOT find the complete answer / solution to their problem and click around your site ... until they find or give up

which of the 2 above sites is better ? the one who offers a complete answer in a minute on a single page
or the one site which offers a partial or no answer after clicking many pages

the bounce rate definitely never shows the answer to above question
only the publisher with additional SW and stats in addition to the knowledge of the self created content may know the answer ...

for many years I have studied the direct queries (live while surfers on site) and the pages they visited
the goal is and always was to offer a reply as complete as possible on a single page or if too complex on as few pages as possible.

money oriented site owners however may want a surfer to waste time and click on as many pages as possible - simply for the CPM ad revenue ...
a good web publisher has the needs and problems of his site visitors in mind and helps to save time and supports efficiency above profits !

 

Hans

I appreciate your comments on this, and I agree about using my n web log details for visitor stats. That said from my research it does seem that G maybe using analytics to assess the effectiveness of its search results. It would also be logical for G to do this as it can get some measurement on how long visitors stay on a site they have referred them to.

I know that bounce rate is a basic measure, my aim here is to ensure that G analytics does not understate the stickiness of my website for visitors. Thus my concern about how to get pdf docs to show in analytics as another page on my website rather than a bounce away to another site.

 

I have just found the answer, if you set up analytics as an event tracker for the pdf download it will not create a bounce in the statistics. You can read more here ... http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/eventTrackerGuide.html

 

Brilliant Gordano i needed to know this, cheers.