My average visit duration is UP by 110% from 2 minutes to 4 minutes... and my visits (rankings) are down by 6 %.... I would have thought to see more positive ranking affects from that..

[TylerAbernethy]

Latttteee last night I asked this question

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Just like the question says, I would have thought that Google would reward a site with more traffic that clearly has a growing level of user engagement.

I can't imagine that there are other sites in my niche that are having a longer rate of user engagement...

Well, since I can't guarentee that, let's not debate what we don't know..

But shouldn't SOME benefits be seen for a 110% increase?

I mean shit, if I could replicate those results with sales, I would really be able to afford higher rankings...

Maybe that's how they feel?

If I get longer duration, I should get more sales, which means I should be able to afford to pay a professional more to get me to rank higher....?

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A nice guy Marcus Miller(http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/78416) answered by saying

Hey Tyler

Google analytics data is not used in anyway in the search ranking algorithm. It's a great thing that your user engagement is up, but it will not benefit you with a better rank on the back of that.

That said, if people are enjoying your site more, it should be easier to generate more links and sharing to get more traffic and hopefully boost your standing in search.

This is worth a watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg...

Hope this helps.

Marcus

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I was still a little unsure though, so I said

Solid answer man, I really appriciate the youtube link too, gotta love when an answer is chizzled in stone.

I was thinking though..

Google does track data for bouncing back to search for similar queries, and some types of time on site, etc, right?

Do you, or does anyone else know the specifics about the data that Google tracks, in relation to how a user interacts with your site?

[TylerAbernethy]

It did actually. My pages that had the word specifications on them were getting a lot of niche specific traffic for

"(make / model) specifications"

even though we sell

"(make / model) parts."

That little traffic cloud is dwindling, I have considered doing something to at least help those searchers find what they need, since they are likely having an issue finding it.

Well, regardless, it certainly seems like some sort of brand introduction opportunity could be in order, considering we sell parts for those (make / model)s

EGOL you hit the nail on the head there. Those numbers were affecting my site average pretty significantly.

The "specifications" related traffic has dropped -24.7.% average over the last 2 months

While "part(s)" related keywords risen +19.6% over that same two months.

Looks like Google might be paying even more attention to time on site than I thought after all... o_0...  ?

[EGOL]

Right... or... did your traffic change?  Traffic quality is strongly related to time-on-site.

[KevinBudzynski]

Unfortunately no one but a Google Engineer does.

Did your site receive a makeover? Often times, after a site change you would see a fluctuation (outside the norm)  in time on site (a higher time on site could also indicate a user could not find what they are looking for).