Does Google factor in site traffic, time on site, bounce rate, etc into it's ranking algorithm?
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I can't seem to find an authoritative answer on this.
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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
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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.
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Yep! thanks!
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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!
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