Do you believe CTR affects rankings
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As you know, Google tracks CTR on keywords for your website visible through google Webmaster Tools. How much if at all do you believe this affects your rankings on the tracked keywords?
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Experiment: I did an experiment on a new domain with only a small amount of authority. At the time, I only had a few links pointing to my domain, and the site was 1.5 months old. I was ranking #3 for the term "redding SEO" (the city that I live in.) I used social media, friends, and family from across the country for this experiment. I asked them to search for "redding seo" and click on my site.
The Results: Within 2 days, I jumped from position 3 to position 2, and I've stayed there ever since. I didn't do any other link building, or content creation on my site over the 48 hours, so the only factor that I can contribute to my rank change is CTR.
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CTR, Bounce Rate, Time spent on a page/website, site speed etc they all add up. As Google and other Search Engines mention that they have 200+ ranking signals, these things are definitely part of those. Also, these influence your Site Score/Quality Score which might also affect how you rank in PPC. If you have a higher CTR, therefore a better site-score, Google Adwords might show you ad at #1 even though the site at #2 is paying more per click.
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I do believe it is counting since in definitive, it's the best method that google can use to quantify interest of a result.
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Same here: Used, but not (yet) heavily as a site specific quality metric. I suspect it is also used as a SERP quality metric: If the top results aren't getting a decent CTR then that is probably a result that needs looking at as a whole.
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I agree with EGOL. Its too useful of a metric for them to completely ignore. However its probably not weighted very high since this is something that would be very gameable.
See: http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-7 for some extra opinions on this topic.
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My personal belief is that this counts for a lot.
Think about it.... You know that Google has this data and if NOBODY is clicking on your entry then you are wasting that space in their SERPs.
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