What are entry pages and exit pages?

Definitions

Every session has exactly one entry page and one exit page. They can be the same page: a visit that loads one page and leaves has that page as both. The entry page is often called the landing page, especially in advertising, where it means the page an ad points to.

Two rates go with them. Entry share tells you which pages people actually arrive on — often not the home page; search engines land people deep in the site. Exit rate tells you, for each page, how often it was the last one seen.

A worked example

A pricing page had 2,000 pageviews last month. 600 of those were the last pageview in their session.

Exit rate = 600 ÷ 2,000 = 30%.

Of the 2,000 views, 500 were the first page of a session, and 200 of those sessions saw nothing else. Bounce rate for sessions entering on pricing = 200 ÷ 500 = 40%. The two numbers describe different groups: exit rate covers everyone who saw the page at any point; bounce rate covers only those who started there.

Healthy exits and leaks

Every visit ends somewhere, so a high exit rate is not a problem on its own. Ask what the page is for:

• Expected exits — order confirmation, "thanks for signing up", a help article that answered the question, a contact page with a phone number. People leave because they are done.
• Leaks — cart, checkout steps, sign-up forms, pricing. These pages exist to send people forward; a high exit rate means something stops them.

For leaks, look at the exit rate by traffic source and device. A checkout step that loses mobile visitors but not desktop ones is usually a form or payment problem, not an intent problem.

Where TapCub shows them

The pages report has separate tabs for entry pages and exit pages next to all pages, hostnames and 404 pages. Each row shows entries or exits, and the all-pages table carries an exit-rate column so you can sort for the pages that end the most visits.

TapCub stores the entry and exit path on every session, so the same breakdown is available in session analysis together with duration, depth and bounce, and you can filter any report by entry page — for example, retention for people who first landed on a comparison article.

Common mistakes

• Treating exit rate and bounce rate as the same. Bounce rate only counts sessions that began on the page; exit rate counts every view.
• Optimising the home page first. Check entry pages before redesigning. On many content and SEO-driven sites the home page receives a small share of entries.
• Fixing exits on finish pages. A "thank you" page with a 95% exit rate is working as intended.
• Ignoring the step before. If the exit page of a leak is the payment step, the cause may be the shipping cost shown one step earlier.

Related guides: Bounce Rate vs Exit Rate and Content Performance Metrics.

See also: Find exit pages.