Thoughts on User Behavior Data as a Ranking Signal
-
Hi Community!
We have been having an ongoing internal discussion on user behavior data as a ranking signal. We found this Moz article discussing the topic and it leaves us asking questions such as:
- What onsite user behavior metrics are being used (if any)?
- How exactly is Google collecting this information - Chrome? Google Analytics (which they have already claimed GA is not used for ranking purposes)?
- With privacy policies in place, how exactly is Google able to utilize this information?
The article discusses Google patents for collecting this information (The Monitoring Engine), Chrome's MetricsService which is "a system in charge of the acquisition and transmission of user log data", as well as the Reasonable Surfer model. Some highlights from the article include:
-
"Google has designed and patented a system in charge of collecting and processing of user behaviour data. They call it "the monitoring engine"
-
"Google's client behavior data processor can retrieve client-side behavior data associated with a web page. This client-side behavior data can then be used to help formulate a ranking score for the article."
-
The monitoring engine can:
-
Distinguish whether the user is actually viewing an article, such as a web page, or whether the web page has merely been left active on the client device while the user is away from the client.
-
Monitor a plurality of articles associated with one or more applications and create client-side behavior data associated with each article individually.
-
Determine client-side behavior data for multiple user articles and ensure that the client-side behavior data associated with an article can be identified with that particular article.
-
Transmit the client-side behavior data, together with identifying information that associates the data with a particular article to which it relates, to the data store for storage in a manner that preserves associations between the article and the client behaviors.
- MetricsService: "Chrome's MetricsService is a system in charge of the acquisition and transmission of user log data. Transmitted histograms contain very detailed records of user activities, including opened/closed tabs, fetched URLs, maximized windows, et cetera."
- “Reasonable surfer” is the random surfer's successor. The PageRank dampening factor reflects the original assumption that after each followed link, our imaginary surfer is less likely to click on another random link, resulting in an eventual abandonment of the surfing path. Most search engines today work with a more refined model encompassing a wider variety of influencing factors.
- In addition to perceived importance from on-page signals, a search engine may judge link popularity by observing common user choices. A link on which users click more within a page can carry more weight than the one with less clicks. Google in particular mentions user click behaviour monitoring in the context of balancing out traditional, more manipulative signals (e.g. links).
I do not expect a concrete answer here, I know there is a lot of uncertainty on the topic but I am very interested to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
-
I appreciate the input!
-
I bet the ranch on this a long time ago and told folks about it here.
If your site isn't generating positive visitor behaviors it does not deserve to rank. Google can collect data on them from browsers, Adsense, SERPs, devices... a very long list of data collecting methods.
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
-
Target="_blank" and referral acquisition data
Hi, Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! I have been reading up on this topic but there is some contradictory articles out there and I was hoping someone could clarify the latest practise for me. Website A links out to four of its partner websites.
Search Behavior | | AMA-DataSet
These links are using a target="_blank". When i look at the acquisition data for any of the partner websites there is zero referral data from site A.
I tested this wasn't an analytics bug by using the real time feature while clicking the partner links to see what had happened, and to also find the source, but I found that they are all being returned as a source direct. Ideally id like it to show the referrals once more for reporting purposes. Do I need to add extra google analytics parameters/functions to track the outbound links? or should this referral data be appearing correctly and it is something unrelated to the links themselves? or should I throw in the towel and drop the target blanks? Thank you in advance for your time.
Best Regards.0 -
Google smacked my site and dropped all rankings, can't find out why
I have checked out everything, I mean everything. We have no dupe content, our content is a little thin, but it is ours and accurate enough to help our customers.We follow all SEO guidelines and make sure we de-index any pages with no / little content (like privacy, or faq) All in all, we haven't done any major updates to the sites, and everything was great (page one on almost all kw) but beginning of the month, all kw wiped to the second page, than third, than back to one and now pretty much gone (rank 100-200) I really don't know what to do. We didn't receive a manual action, and the last algo update was nothing big to cause such a drastic change. Meanwhile our competition (multiple sites) are gaining in ranks and nothing happened to them (most of them have even less content and not even SSL) Negative SEO is out of question, I check all links via ahrefs every other day. Any help is appreciated Thanks
Search Behavior | | s-s0 -
Demographic Data For Keywords
Hey i was wondering if anyone is aware of any tools at identifying demographic data for keyword terms. Like age, gender, etc? Cheers, AZ
Search Behavior | | MBASydney0 -
My satellite website is ranking better than my actual site. Why and what to do?
This is our website: www.sauspiel.de and this is the satellite website. As the satellite site has a better ranking for the keyword "schafkopf" since two or three weeks we wonder how this could happen and what would be best to change it or improve the situation. Shall we take down the satellite site, redirect to the "real" site or try to downgrade? And what would you consider to be the (strongest) reason? Any suggestions? Thanks a lot for your help and assessment!
Search Behavior | | sauspiel0 -
Why are Google ranking changes so drastic?
Hi SEOmoz community I'm sure this question has been asked numerous times before. At the same time there must be plenty of people out there wondering about the same thing: Why are Google ranking changes so drastic? It's like the diva of search engines. When checking the SEOmoz ranking reports, sometimes lots of keywords improve, the next week it's vice versa. Mind though that the ranking changes are not in proportion. While improving keywords climb up by approx. 1 - 10 positions, declining keywords always get a smack with a 15 - 25 position drop, even though these very same keywords are being targeted onsite through new content. It seems to make no difference after all 😉 Is it possible, that keyword fluctuations are stronger for younger sites? The site I am talking about is about a year old. Is it possible that more competitive keywords see more drastic fluctuations? Would be interested to hear your thoughts. Thanks!!
Search Behavior | | Hermski0 -
Does Page Load Time Affect SEO Rankings?
I was curious about how much page load times affect rankings. Here's what I did: I put together a lot of interactive media on specific landing pages Time-on-Page from organic visitors went from 50 seconds to average of 34 minutes Bounce Rate decreased by 20% Page Load time increased from 1 second to 6 seconds and at peak times to 8 seconds (on 56KB test) In the meantime the page was re-indexed and re-cached My question is three-fold: Would the time on page give higher rankings for keyword Would decreased bounce rate enhance rankings? Would the page load time decrease rankings? Did anyone do a similar test? What were the results?
Search Behavior | | HMCOE0 -
User behaviour reports
Hi there! we are all aware about the importance of user behaviour in search results. But I am a bit short of ideas in how a good report/analysis of this specific topic would be. So far, I have managed to do the following: Usability tests and anlysis using tools like crazy egg, in order to check how is the traffic flow and the call to actions to the best products regarding people who come from SEO traffic. GA analysis focused on: bounce rate, page views and traffic flow Is there anything else you would add to these two items to get the most out of this topic? thanks a lot in advance!!
Search Behavior | | elisainteractive0 -
We were ranked no8, and now we are no2 but...
We were ranked no8, and in one week we jumped to no2 on Google, but there is no change in nuber of our visitors. What is going on? Is it personalization of SERP? What can we do? Tnx
Search Behavior | | ProFishingStore0