Does Google factor in site traffic, time on site, bounce rate, etc into it's ranking algorithm?
-
I can't seem to find an authoritative answer on this.
-
If Google came out today and said "site traffic, time on site and bounce rate are all going to be factors of our algorithm" then ethically-challenged individuals and companies may considering banks of users based in places with low labour costs to try to manipulate the algorithm.
It is almost certain that Google has considered this in the past but is worried that people may try and game the system. As such I would expect any ranking element related to the quality of a site to be more complex.
There are suggestions that Google is trying to get algorithms to be able to judge the aesthetic quality of a site and that this could be a factor in the future
-
You won't find any authoritative answer on this, some sort of bounce could be used by Google but you will never know the % for this specific bounce rate.
-
Yep! thanks!
-
Of course Google may not come right out and say it, but this article seems to make a case that bounce rate is a factor: http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/21/bounce-rate-seo/
And here's an interesting Google blog post where site speed is a confirmed signal of their algorithm: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html
Hope this helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Any disadvantages of employing additional images which open in new window? Will it impact bounce rate and rankings?
Hi all, Our website is all about our software product. Generally our website pages are filled with 3 to 6 screenshots of our product features. As Google recently shifting to mobile index and pageload speed is going to be priority, we decided to compress the images on our pages and show the same images of large size in new window when someone clicks on a image. I wonder if this helps or has any disadvantages? Users may click on these clickable images while browsing the pages and may shift to new window to view the image. Will this have any negative impact on bounce rate? Please share your thoughts. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Does Google’s Algorithm Populate Answer Boxes with Its Own Independent Research?
If you search 'best games to play for youtube' you get an answer box with answers pulled independently from the article at hand. Here's an image: http://imgur.com/a/S0j9B Here are all the games from my article, in the order in which they appear. Google's chosen games for Answer Box are bolded: Battlefield 1 Bloodborne GTA V FiFA 16 TrackMania Turbo Garry’s Mod League of Legends Call of Duty: Black Ops III Tom Clancy’s The Division Overwatch Just Cause 3 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Brawlhalla Rocket League Dark Souls III Unravel Firewatch GoldenEye 007 (this was put in as a joke, but coded as an H2 nonetheless) Destiny Dead by Daylight Fallout 4 Undertale No Man’s Sky Minecraft As you can see, Google is choosing which games to display to its searchers. My Crazy Egg data shows that these were not picked by click volume (each of these H2s are hyperlinked), which means Google must be using some other popularity metric, such as its own search volume data or external sales data. I wrote this up in a post on my site, for anybody who's curious.
Algorithm Updates | | Edward_Sturm1 -
Crosslinking & Managing Multiple Domains in Same Webmaster Tool's Account
I am wondering if there are any consequences if you manage multiple websites in the same Webmaster Tool's account and cross link between them? My guess is that this would be a very easy thing for Google to detect and build into their algorithms. Hence affect the link juice from those domains that are owned by the same person. I am looking for verification on this. Thanks, Joe
Algorithm Updates | | csamsojo0 -
Site not in Google top 50 for key terms
Dear Moz Community, Our site - http://www.sportsdirectnews.com publishes a high volume of daily sport stories and aims to follow Google's Webmaster Guidelines, yet our pages don't appear anywhere in Google's SERP's. We've looked in details at the issue and think it could be something to do with: a) Unusual links or b) High page loading time or c) Too many on-page links If you could have a look at the site - http://www.sportsdirectnews.com - and give your professional opinion as to why our website is not appearing in SERP's, we would be most appreciative. SDN
Algorithm Updates | | BoomDialogue690 -
Does Google or Bing use words in the page title beyond the displayed limit for ranking purposes?
Standard good practice for on-page SEO includes keeping page title length below the maximum that Google displays in the SERPs. But words in the title beyond that maximum can be indexed, even if they don't show in the SERPs for end users. For ranking purposes, is there any value in words beyond the character limit in page titles that are truncated in the SERPs?
Algorithm Updates | | KyleJB0 -
Google Multiple Results
With Google's penchant for listing at times many results - one on top of the other - from the same domain, is it now advisable to not worry about having multiple pages in the same site targeting the same or very similar keywords? Is this (keyword/page internal competition) one less thing that I have to worry about or worry about less or what? Thanks! Best... Jane
Algorithm Updates | | 945010 -
Does this mean that exact keyword phrase anchor text is not the dominating ranking factor anymore for serps?http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/ten-recent-algorithm-changes.html
Does this mean that exact keyword phrase anchor text is not the dominating ranking factor anymore for serps? http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2011/11/ten-recent-algorithm-changes.html If so what is the new most important factor?
Algorithm Updates | | AndrewSEO0 -
How Google Determines Sitelinks
Does anyone have authoritative information on how Google determines which links to use as sitelinks? I thought I saw that Top Landing Pages was a metric Google used (in part).
Algorithm Updates | | joshfialkoff-778630