Does Live Chat affect SERPS

[henandstag]

For the last week we have hosted Live Chat on www.freedomltd.com desktop and tablet.

The latest MOZ ranking reports shows 4 increase, 86 decrease and 170 unchanged keywords.

Could Live Chat have anything to do with this?

[TimHolmes]

We experienced a similar thing when we implemented a live chat solution. Our TTTFB increased siginificantly, not only did this impact the serps but also reduced the customers experience due to having to wait longer.

See if your live chat solution can provide you with a gzip compressed version that you can also load in asyncronously. This may help give your site a speed boost whilst at the same time maintaining an excellent UX element.

[henandstag]

thanks - yes page speed has declined and I'll look into this
First Byte Time (back-end processing): 79/100
Leverage browser caching of static assets: 75/100
Both of these were over 90% before the inclusion of Live Chat.

[CommT]

Has it increased your average time on page? That may indicate a good user experience so Google may reward you for it. However, as Chris has indicated, load times may suffer with live chat. We took live chat off our website because of this.

[GPainter]

I wouldn't of thought so directly as it like a log-in would need the robots to type which they don't tend to do, it may indirectly affect your SERPs via a longer loading time but again it's most likely something else, Have you checked other factors like any link building you've been doing or if you've had and referring links drop etc. ?

Have you also seen much movement in your niche? You may find someone else has other input but in my opinion if it benefits the users I'm up for it, just make sure ti doesn't affect loading time by adding crazy times etc.