clicked pages = higher positions?

cyclopopcicle · 18 Jul 2010 at 17:31

does how many times a web link is clicked from a google search effect its position?

Locke · 18 Jul 2010 at 17:34

It's more complicated than that. Check here

daz · 18 Jul 2010 at 17:41

Yes, I think it is a metric used by Google to determine how relevant the search results were to what the user initially search for.

Bounce rate is also something else that I believe Google may take in to account if you're running analytics. (As well as if a user searched for something, and ends back searching for the same thing a few seconds later)

AJK · 18 Jul 2010 at 22:35

cyclopopcicle said:
does how many times a web link is clicked from a google search effect its position?

Not directly; that is, you can't build a bot to search for your desired keywords and click on your result thousands of times to push your site up in the rankings.

That said, I'd be surprised if it wasn't factored in at all.

unwashed potato! · 19 Jul 2010 at 00:32

daz said:
Yes, I think it is a metric used by Google to determine how relevant the search results were to what the user initially search for.

Bounce rate is also something else that I believe Google may take in to account if you're running analytics. (As well as if a user searched for something, and ends back searching for the same thing a few seconds later)

i always wonder how people think google can tell on a sites bounce rate? i usually have one page open with search results and then open new tabs for each site i think will give me what i want, and then if i decide to just click each one at a time still going back in your history wont be sending info to google so they wouldn't know?

also they don't use analytic for their search results (or at least didn't last time i checked) so unsure how they'd know at all.

i'd have thought the bounce rate is really inaccurate at not used at all.

cyclopopcicle: if there was a simple answer to that question, e.g. 100 times, surely everyone would be doing that?

gord · 19 Jul 2010 at 09:43

In simple terms, yes, Google will see a more popular page as having higher importance for people and so its ranking will improve.

Bounce rate will probably be another metric taken into account as it highlights misleading content.

However, the extent to which these metrics influence the ranking pale in comparison to the markup, content and linking structure of your site.

suarve · 19 Jul 2010 at 10:24

I've read that Google assigns a kind of 'page sticky' score to websites, however, I've never actually seen any evidence that this has affected any aspect of a pages rank.