Over the last few years we have found that it's very difficult to actually find a research on bounce rate that gives an average. The best research we have found is by Google Analytics. The data comes from all websites which have opted-in anonymous data sharing with GoogleAnalytics. Although this is not seperated in categories its gives web site owners and idea. Of course this depends on the type of website such as e-commerce, blog, news or forum.Site MetricsCompared to a year ago, websites have seen reduced pages / visit, average time on site as well as bounce

1/11/09 - 1/2/101/11/10 - 1/2/11DifferencePages/Visit4.94.5-0.4Bounce Rate48.2%47.0%-1.2%Avg. Time on Site5:495:23-0:26

Breakdown by GeographyGeographic breakdown at the country level. Here are a few representative countries and their respective aggregate metrics. The first number in each cell represents the metric for the date range 1/11/10-1/2/11. The parenthesised number is the Year over Year delta compared to a year ago.

CountryPages / VisitBounce RateAvg. Time on SiteUnited States4.7 (-0.1)42.5% (-6.1%)6:06 (-0:10)United Kingdom4.9 (-0.3)41.5% (+0.2%)5:38 (-0.27)France4.4 (-0.4)49.7% (+1.4%)4:40 (-0:08)Brazil4.1 (-0.1)47.8% (-2.9%)5:20 (+0:03)China4.1 (-0.1)58.2% (+1.0%)3:46 (+0:37)Japan3.9 (-0.1)48.6% (-9.0%)3:47 (-2:59)

Overall we do believe that bounce rate is a very unique metric for each website. It's something that should be monitored on a category level but also on a page level. Any pages with a very high bounce rate should be changed and ideally run some test with the content of even layout. Bounce rate is something that Google is taking into account in their organic rankings but apart from this the user should be happy visiting your site! :)