Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Does CTR Affect Ranking & Authority? Can PPC Influence That Too?
-
Hi everyone,
Good CTR and bounce rate seem to affect rankings positively, but what about domain authority? Is that something built entirely on links and semantics, or does CTR play a factor too?
Consider a homepage ranking for its brand name. Switching off any brand PPC will increase the natural listing's CTR. Would that have a positive SEO impact on the homepage/domain?
-
Hi there,
Since Domain Authority is a Moz metric, it is not affected by CTR due to Moz not being able to determine or collect this sort of data.
As far as CTR and PPC influencing search rankings goes, there are good reasons why Google would not rely on either metric too intently. For one, it would be very easy to mimic a very bad bounce rate on a competitor's site: set bots to click on search results to a competitor website, click straight out.
It would be a big conflict of interest for PPC to influence SEO either positively or negatively, and although none of us are naive enough to believe that Google always does everything with the best of intentions, they would be in a world of trouble if this type of behaviour were proven.
CTR and bounce rate are so easily influenced / manipulated by factors outside of quality, authority and relevancy that I assume their influence on rankings is quite low. Sure, this data is valuable to Google, but it won't be a signal that has a huge amount of relevance.
-
As Martijn said, I can't see that DA would be affected by CTR. This is more likely affected by links and how Google perceives you as an authority site. I am sure there will be lots of other factors that play a part in this also.
-Andy
-
Hi boux,
At the moment Google is probably incorporating the CTR in some way to calculate the rankings. They know from the period of time between visiting SERPs how much time you\v'e spend on a page. I however doubt that they will use it to calculate the domain authority. As for some pages it won't say a thing that you've only been to a page for 30 seconds. To be fair I don't think you'll ever be able to calculate the impact of switching off your PPC brand listings to see as positive impact on SEO.
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
-
Ranking Expectations and Search Intent Alignment
I've recently implemented the page optimization recommendations provided by Moz Pro to help our site rank for specific keywords on certain pages. It’s been about two weeks since we've added these URLs/keyword parings. The optimization scores for the targeted keywords and URLs are looking strong. Also, we've crafted these pages with keyword optimisation in mind. However, we have a couple of questions as we move forward: Ranking Expectations: Since our optimization scores are good, when might we start seeing improvements in our keyword rankings? We know that SEO results can take time, but we would appreciate any insights on a typical timeline based on your experiences. Optimization and Search Intent: While the tool’s optimization suggestions have been helpful in regards to giving us a score for a specific keyword, we’re curious about how this factors into search intent. How does this tool take into account variations in search intent, especially if users search using slight variations of the keywords we’re targeting? Thank you so much for your insight!
On-Page Optimization | | Cricket930 -
Affect of ™ and ® in title for SEO
I am looking at adding the trademark and rights reserved symbols to some of my titles. I think this might help with click through rate. From what I have found, this shouldn't have an affect on SEO unless it makes the title too long. Is this correct? Stephen
On-Page Optimization | | stephen.volker1 -
Will changing a URL negatively affect ranking?
Hello Mozzers, We would like to change the URL for a page on our website which ranks well for some our keyphrases/words. We are hoping the change of URL, through the addition of an additional keyword would help boost the rank of that URL further. At the moment out page gets 2 x A and 2 x B 1xF on the MOZ page rank tool using 5 keyphrase/word variations . One phrase ranks 4, one ranks 3 and the other 3 are 'not in the top 50' Our plan was to change the URL, using SHF404, and use 'Fetch' in the Google search console to re-submit the page to Google. Appreciate you can't give any guarantees how Google will behave, just wondered what your thoughts were on the wisdom of changing the URL in the first place? Thanks Ian
On-Page Optimization | | Substance-create0 -
Stolen Content reposted on other sites. How does this affect ranking?
Visitors often copy and paste my content and post it elsewhere... on Facebook, on Tumblr, on forums and sometimes on competing websites... but they don't link to me. How does Google treat this duplicated content? What is the best way to handle it? File DCMA claims or ask them for a link?
On-Page Optimization | | brianflannery0 -
Does Rel=canonical affect google shopping feed?
I have a client who gets a good portion of their sales (~40%) from Google Product Feeds, and for those they want each (Product X Quantity) to have it’s own SKU, as they often get 3 listings in a given Google shopping query, i.e. 2,4,8 units of a given product. However, we are worried about this creating duplicate content on the search side. Do you know if we could rel=canonical on the site without messing with their google shopping results? The crux of the issue is that they want the products to appear distinct for the product feed, and unified for the web so as not to dilute. Thoughts?
On-Page Optimization | | VISISEEKINC0 -
How does a collapsed section affect on page SEO?
A client recently asked me whether a tabbed collapsed section of text that is expanded (i.e. revealed) when clicked, is an OK thing to do without negatively effecting SEO. I told him that for starters, he may want to rethink why he would want to hide the text in the first place (this is not an FAQ type scenario). The reason has to do with the aesthetic of the page. Anyway, aesthetic aside, any thoughts on whether a collapsed (hidden from view) negatively affects on-page SEO? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | stephanwb
Stephan0 -
H2s & H3s for Category Navigation
Hi all. I am wondering how best to format a category navigation menu. Currently I don't think we're using H2s correctly on our website. Am I right to think that the top level category e.g. Games should be formatted as an H2 and the sub-categories underneath this should be formatted as H3s (to show a hierarchy)? Is there a limit on how many H2s and H3s you should use? Obviously only one H1 per page. Thanks in advance Paul
On-Page Optimization | | kevinliao0 -
Splash page - is it possible to rank well?
Hi there, I have a website with splash page - http://veda4.com/ . It's trully cool looking, the owner of our company wants the home page to be this way. But is it ok from SEO viewpoint? Can it rank well for keywords. All my SEO strategy were not using splash pages and I am not sure what should I change so it work with splash page also. I myself won't choose splash page but my boss trully liked it.
On-Page Optimization | | HrishikeshKarov0