On March 31th my bounce rate was about 68%, but by April 1st my bounce rate was at about 12%. Since then my average bounce rate is showing in the low to mid teens. How is that even possible? My mentor thinks my analytics are "broken." I didn't even know it was possible to break Google's analytics. LOL Any suggestions on how I can verify my figures? Now I am questioning everything analytics are giving me. I have included an image of my bounce rate.
Analytics are never 100% accurate, but this does sound wrong. Have you checked your website? If most of your traffic comes via the same landing page, then they quickly move to another page for the useful content, then it would give you a very low bounce rate.
I thought your bounce rate was how quickly someone left your site, not how quickly they leave the landing page. Currently, unless someone is connecting directly with a particular article they are coming to the homepage of the website as the main landing page. Is there a way to test what is happening?
Bounce rate is when someone visits your site, then leaves without going to another page. Under the Behavior menu in Google Analytics you can use the Behavior flow to see where people are coming in and dropping out. You can also use Site Content > All Pages to check pages with very low bounce rates and Landing Pages.