Does clicking on your own results on Google get you better rankings?

[Alyona The Publicist]

I get this particular question a lot, "does clicking on a particular search result, on Google, improve it’s rankings?"

Google recently released personalized results that can effect your own personal rankings which means that the more you frequent a website through Google, the more it will rank higher for you. So if you keep clicking a site it will go up in YOUR results but not for the rest of the world!

Result : Clicking on search engine results is… a waste of time and will get your site nowhere!

[GoogleWarrior]

Oh no! Then why do I always click on my site? Thanks for the info.

[Sloop John B]

Fortunately Google doesn't even place my site; perhaps she knows it's best not to tempt me.

[Alyona The Publicist]

Sloop John B : If Google is not indexing your websites properly and ranking you high, I think you should revise your internet marketing strategy next year!

[Sloop John B]

You can say that again, alyonafrendo. I'm just starting out in IM and am still rather clueless. What's odd to me is it's on the third page in yahoo and bing... And it is indexed in Google.

[HelpfulHannah]

Pity there is a software product out there sold as a WSO which the whole purpose is to search for your term and click on your site... except it's done through proxies.

How sad.

[rosetrees]

I get asked that question a lot by my own clients. I've always just said that no, it makes no difference. Where you are ranked depends on how Google likes your site, its content, the number of links etc.

Thanks for raising the issue, it makes me realise that it's not only my clients who think that clicking on a site somehow improves its rankings!

Now I'm wondering if I'm missing something and someone, somewhere "out there" is telling people that it does??

[Fernando Veloso]

Assuming YOU know what Google does or does not it's quite funny.

Edit: If Google uses personalized results, wouldn't ALL those results be a indicator to new results?

- "Lots of people search THIS site, lets move him up"

Just a idea, but since you know what Google does... probably I am wrong - which it's usual.

[smartdoctor]

Originally Posted by GoogleWarrior

Oh no! Then why do I always click on my site? Thanks for the info.

NO and never try on ad sense ar you wanna get banned like me

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Assuming YOU know what Google does or does not it's quite funny.

Edit: If Google uses personalized results, wouldn't ALL those results be a indicator to new results?

- "Lots of people search THIS site, lets move him up"

Just a idea, but since you know what Google does... probably I am wrong - which it's usual.

I am not saying I exclude that Google may give in some factoring in the algorithm to 'clicking on a particular result'

But I doubt it very much, Google has never been happy with allowing users any say in their results, in fact they even factored out Google Bombs by manually eliminating such flaws.

However I think we must test this theory, in fact I am going to do some testing myself using some software I just bought after reading your post, I will report back with my results here. Al tough I think this would go into grey/black hat techniques, since if google catches you probably it will ban you!

It would be interesting to see what the experiences of various other warriors is, I am interested in reading your experiences in the meantime!

[Fernando Veloso]

Fact is: Google uses more and more personalized results.

When I am logged in, I search a lot for a couple bodyboard sites. After some time they show up higher then usual FOR ME.

IF other Google users search a lot for one given site, Google (probably) will put it higher then usual for THAT user.

BUT...

If one webmaster clicking in his URL in search results all day long (in his computer) makes any difference OTHER then to himself and the results HE SEES... probably not.

[SamWilsonLaw]

Never tried this... but I'm guessing I'd waste a lot of time going at it. The question that goes through my head is... how would the SE know about the clicks, and why would they care (unless it directly involves their revenue business i.e. contextual ads, PPC, etc.)?

My $$$ tried and true SEO methods don't include clicking on my links.

[timpears]

Originally Posted by HelpfulHannah

Pity there is a software product out there sold as a WSO which the whole purpose is to search for your term and click on your site... except it's done through proxies.

How sad.

Not sad at all. I am considering purchasing this software. I was having problems getting my news site high up in the SERP when I would publish my daily articles. Then one day I got a really hot article. After that, almost all of my articles would go to the top two or three of the G News SERP, and probably three out of four would make it to the top few of G if not the number one listed on the G SERP.

My daily traffic went from having problems breaking 1,000 to every day 5,000 to 7,000 and the day I sold it I had over 14,000 by 6:00 pm when the transfer took place.

So you tell me that clicking on your link with different proxies doesn't work. I don't agree. Maybe my experience has another meaning, but it is good enough for me. And that software seller has quite a few positive reviews in the thread.

[timpears]

Originally Posted by SamWilsonLaw

The question that goes through my head is... how would the SE know about the clicks, and why would they care (unless it directly involves their revenue business i.e. contextual ads, PPC, etc.)?

You would be surprised at what G knows. They got more data bases filled with information on what you or others clicked on than you can count. They can tell you when people click on your link, and how long they stay on your site after they go there.

[AustinTPL]

Originally Posted by HelpfulHannah

Pity there is a software product out there sold as a WSO which the whole purpose is to search for your term and click on your site... except it's done through proxies.

How sad.

I haven't looked at this particular WSO or read anything about it, but to me it sounds like there may be a mixup unless it is taking advantage of the uneducated.

Perhaps the WSO seller is talking about clicking on your link to improve your personalized rankings so that it is easier to find when you are searching in your own keywords.

However, as far as clicking your own link actually increasing your SERP rankings for your targeted keywords, I don't think that is true. For your personalized search results yes, but for your actual SERP rankings, no.

[timpears]

Originally Posted by miscbrah

However, as far as clicking your own link actually increasing your SERP rankings for your targeted keywords, I don't think that is true. For your personalized search results yes, but for your actual SERP rankings, no.

That software is not clicking on your own link. It uses different proxies so it looks like others are doing the clicking. And if you don't think G pays attention to what SERP listings are getting the clicks, then you need to wake up. G is all about their customer experience, and they want to deliver what their customer wants. And paying attention to what gets clicked is only naturally the way to figure that out.

[Alyona The Publicist]

Just a small clarification please, when I started out this thread, I did not know there was a warrior (in fact quite a good internet marketer) selling software to click on your own search results.

I myself tried out this software as I know this Warrior is quite good and to tell you the truth the software is great and does it's job wonderfully.

Some people are saying that Google cannot know what you click on, this is definetely wrong because Google has lots of data on everything we does. They know what you click on, where you are and how long you took to decide what to click on!!

[ameerulislam10]

Your ip address is easily recorded. If google has this algorithm (out of it's 200 algorithms) to follow the click-through rates it can easily track the source of it. So clicking on your site from SERP will be as same as clicking it once. Common sense right?!

[RealEcon]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Fact is: Google uses more and more personalized results.

When I am logged in, I search a lot for a couple bodyboard sites. After some time they show up higher then usual FOR ME.

IF other Google users search a lot for one given site, Google (probably) will put it higher then usual for THAT user.

BUT...

If one webmaster clicking in his URL in search results all day long (in his computer) makes any difference OTHER then to himself and the results HE SEES... probably not.

The reason your site goes up in the serps when you click on it is because Google puts a cookie in your browser and tracks it every time you click on your site. Use Ccleaner or Scroogle and you can get more accurate search results.

I think with other people clicking on your sites link in Google it probably does help a little with ranking because Google is now using social media, reviews, and voting type sites as indicators of a sites popularity so it would make sense that they would factor in people clicking on your url. After all it can be seen as a vote for your site. But it would just be way to easy to use software to manipulate this metric so I doubt Google puts much emphasis on it.

[markowe]

Google absolutely DOES know what people are clicking on in their search results. All the links you see returned are actually redirected through their servers again when you click, even though this encoded link is 'masked' at the bottom of the browser. They know exactly. And I think it highly likely they will positively bias the ranking of a site the description of which attracts more clicks (that don't bounce straight back to Google afterwards), stands to reason. But a lot of newbies get caught thinking their site has shown up on page 1 when in fact it hasn't, it's just showing Page One for them. that's why Scroogle rules!

[ichommylegend]

Thanks for the info.

[hell0world]

what are we going to discuss here?
1: Will the CTR boost the rank?
2: can Google know if you are clicking the one belongs to you?

I am sure CTR is one of the part of formula.

[ablife]

Like a CTR based model for organic rankings? I wouldn't think so, I can see why it would come up as a question, because of popularity, but if it was true then software could easily be created to manipulate this. I don't think it's anything to be concerned about personally.

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by ablife

Like a CTR based model for organic rankings? I wouldn't think so, I can see why it would come up as a question, because of popularity, but if it was true then software could easily be created to manipulate this. I don't think it's anything to be concerned about personally.

Of course it's a factor. How relevant it is as a factor among the 200 factors google is using is hard to say without some in-depth research and testing on your own.

In AdWords CTR is about 60-70% of your quality score. SERP ranking is even less transparent than Google Quality Score so it is hard to say how relevant it is.

But why wouldn't it factor in for organic search rankings?

In addition to looking at software that rotates through proxies clicking your link - you might want to look into writing something catchy in your title and description tags so that 'snippet' shows up in the SERP is going to draw in clicks.

-Vikram

[BinBinWu]

Yes. It is totally true. I found this out long time ago. And it sucks. You have to check your rankings from others perspective. Some websites offer rank checkings.

[simpleonline1234]

This is an interesting concept though...does google factor in traffic flow to your site from organic clicks? I don't think that anyone person other than Google knows that for sure.

I will have to build a bot to test this theory out for myself...it will go into my experimental sites section..

Shouldn't be hard to implement though just use Ubot and customize the bot to use proxies and find your site in the search engines click on it....ccClean the browser, switch the proxy and rinse and repeat.

Maybe set process to occur in random time spurts to keep it under the radar.

My personal guess is that it will not do anything for the sites because the spammers would have this method on lock down already and Google would slam that method in no time..but hey if it works for now....i'm all for it....I will subscribe to this thread and post my results and the bot later on.

[markowe]

Originally Posted by simpleonline1234

This is an interesting concept though...does google factor in traffic flow to your site from organic clicks? I don't think that anyone person other than Google knows that for sure.

Agreed, only they know, but thinking logically, if you were Google, wouldn't you include CTR as a ranking factor? Sure you would! But I am not sure it is a major variable, after all, it depends hugely on the user's reaction to a small (160 chars, is it?) snippet from your site - hardly indicative of the whole site. I would think bounce rate is MUCH more significant. After all, if a user has searched on a keyword, gone to your site, then reappeared on Google to search again 11 seconds later, would it be fair to say that they did not find what they were looking for on that site? Makes all too much sense.

Originally Posted by hell0world

what are we going to discuss here?
1: Will the CTR boost the rank?
2: can Google know if you are clicking the one belongs to you?

I am sure CTR is one of the part of formula.

Ah, re: no. 2, well, you could develop a whole conspiracy around this - I am a getting a bit paranoid on this issue and may have to start pulling some tricks to mitigate this possible issue. SURE Google know you are the owner, lots of ways, including your using Analytics and Webmaster Tools with the same account! They could EVEN see which keywords you were searching for in the Keyword Tool and if you put up a site heavily optimised for those keywords, penalise it! Am I going too far? Again, if I was Google I might do that...

OK * conspiracy theory mode OFF *, have a great new year, I am off to party not sit here talking about SEO!!!

[matt5409]

i don't know either way for sure, but it would make sense if it had SOME impact.

think about it - google wants to rank the most desirable sites highest, and one metric it could use to find this is by measuring how much a listing gets clicked. i would assume that if this is true, it would only count clicks from unique IP's.

food for thought...

[timpears]

Originally Posted by matt5409

think about it - google wants to rank the most desirable sites highest, and one metric it could use to find this is by measuring how much a listing gets clicked. i would assume that if this is true, it would only count clicks from unique IP's.

food for thought...

Which is what that software does. It makes a lot of sense when you think about it, doesn't it. I think I need to get that software.

[Fernando Veloso]

Quick note:

The software ^^ you're discussing (or similar), DOES NOT:

open Google
search for your keywords
search for your site among the listings
click on your site URL

IT DOES:

open Google
search for your site URL (http://yoursite dot com)
click on it

Just food for thought.

[Big__Lebowski]

Google is much more sophisticated than a hammer... if you want fake real visitors you will need 100s of proxys from your country + special softwere wich will emulate different broswers an opereting systems. compering to effects it's waste of time imho.

[roley]

Originally Posted by Big__Lebowski

Google is much more sophisticated than a hammer... if you want fake real visitors you will need 100s of proxys from your country + special softwere wich will emulate different broswers an opereting systems. compering to effects it's waste of time imho.

I agree with you bro, but people will do anything no matter how short lived it is.

The very announcing of it here on this forum, is like saying

" Hey Google come see how we think we have one over on you " LOL

Its like software that comes out that announces doing this and that, any mention of google and I bet your ass Google knows within days if not weeks

Hence the reason why so many pieces of software and methods are short lived

Google isnt dumb!

And neither are the people who sell this stuff.. They know it wont last long so they scoop up people into a frenzy, grab the money and run ( Hey thats a country song )

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso

Quick note:

The software ^^ you're discussing (or similar), DOES NOT:

open Google
search for your keywords
search for your site among the listings
click on your site URL

IT DOES:

open Google
search for your site URL (http://yoursite dot com)
click on it

Just food for thought.

Uhmm... Mine does!

I wrote a small program that:

1) Opens Google in browser

2) Search keyword in Google

3) Search the page for my domain name.

4) Click & open my SERP Title.

Google made all this possible (and easy) with a recent SERP change.

The program isn't finished (no proxies), other than that it works great. It's kinda cool to hit the go button & watch it search, click, open, & repeat the process for the next keyword.

I have everything hard coded (my own keywords/sites) so I won't be sharing, it would need a complete re-write for anyone else to use & I don't have time.

[Alyona The Publicist]

@yukon - ok your software does all this, but the important question is does it get your websites on top of the serps for that particular keyword you are targeting?

...and you mention "Google made all this possible (and easy) with a recent SERP change." what change are you talking about?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by alyonafrendo

@yukon - ok your software does all this, but the important question is does it get your websites on top of the serps for that particular keyword you are targeting?

...and you mention "Google made all this possible (and easy) with a recent SERP change." what change are you talking about?

1) No my software doesn't get my sites to the top. I never finished it to run proxies, so it's running the same IP for every single forced click my software does.

2) Do a Google search for the keyword car, then press the down arrow on your keyboard.

The little blue arow (see screenshot below) will scroll down the SERP one search result per click.

My software will automate everything the keyboard can do.

Next, it will check for my root domain name, then it will force a keyboard "Enter" button click, If it finds my domain name.

If it doesn't find my domain name it will bail, & move to the next keyword search & keep repeating until the list is finished.

Like I said proxies would have to work before it can simulate another person/IP.

[Spot the Ball]

Am I the only one who thinks this software sounds like a big invitation to site flippers for showing bogus and inflated site UVs to unsuspecting buyers ?

IE: Ripping buyers off.

Originally Posted by HelpfulHannah

Pity there is a software product out there sold as a WSO which the whole purpose is to search for your term and click on your site... except it's done through proxies.

How sad.

[Alyona The Publicist]

The discussion in this thread went the opposite direction of what I meant it to...

My intention was not to discuss the efficacy of this particular software, which to tell the truth I didn't even know it existed!

The argument revolves around the fact : "Does Google give importance to click through rate on search engine results and improves ranking of sites which are clicked on most for any particular keyword"

If it does than this means that anyone clicking on his links and encouraging clients to click in my opinion is doing nothing wrong! ...and we must change all our SEO strategies in the near future where the meta description tag should receive much more attention as people will probably click on your search engine result on the description they get from google (which most of the time is derived from this meta tag)

But if it does not work then all the clicking that is going around now (and I know it's happening!) is futile!!!

[Royalking]

You should get clicks from different ip addresses from different demography.
This will help your site reach new higher positions.

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by Royalking

You should get clicks from different ip addresses from different demography.
This will help your site reach new higher positions.

ok, if I managed to do this, would I get higher serp results? did you try this out? Because if what you are saying is true, this assertion is bound to change the way we look at SEO altogether

[vikramd]

Originally Posted by alyonafrendo

ok, if I managed to do this, would I get higher serp results? did you try this out? Because if what you are saying is true, this assertion is bound to change the way we look at SEO altogether

Yeah - you should see an improvement. This has been discussed on other, more ummm....non whitehat forums for a while.

SE Sniper - SEO Software - Rank on page #1 in Google!

This is available as WSO (not my product & not an affiliate link). Find the WSO thread - some warriors have posted very positive results.

There are like 200 different variables for calculating the SERP. I don't think any of us really know how much the CTR works - but it is not a new idea and it is something Google definitely can measure (and does use for PPC quality scores).

-Vikram

[Ed H]

Originally Posted by alyonafrendo

I get this particular question a lot, "does clicking on a particular search result, on Google, improve it’s rankings?"

Google recently released personalized results that can effect your own personal rankings which means that the more you frequent a website through Google, the more it will rank higher for you. So if you keep clicking a site it will go up in YOUR results but not for the rest of the world!

Result : Clicking on search engine results is… a waste of time and will get your site nowhere!

So, from your experience do you believe software that clicks your link in the SERP will help or not? Seems to be many opinions on this, and of course outside G, there are no definitive answers - but I'd like to know if folks have tested this.

[b0n4r]

Really, clicks don't matter at all regardless if they are your own or not.

[kjay]

I agree. I don't think Google gives or takes away points for clicking on your own search results (not to be confused with EVER clicking on your own ads). Of course, many a newbie has been prematurely excited about their site rankings to only discover that Google will show your site high in the results --- but only to you. That's why there was so much initial dismay when Scroogle disappeared for awhile. Fortunately, it came back!

[superSEO2011]

Thanks for this information but I never click my own site through google

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by vans

So, from your experience do you believe software that clicks your link in the SERP will help or not? Seems to be many opinions on this, and of course outside G, there are no definitive answers - but I'd like to know if folks have tested this.

I am doing my own testing on this one, I have some custom made software, to tell you the truth the results don't seem promising, I will keep the testing going for some more weeks but if I don't see any improvement in the SERPs I will keep assuming that Google does not give much importance to click through rate in SERPs

I have seen lots of evidence that CTR is not important, but I haven't seen any evidence that google gives CTR importance.

Even in this same thread you have people swearing that google gives importance to CTR in the SERPs however when you ask them how they know this they will tell you that a cousin of a friend of a friend knows because he is a friend of an employee at google!! LOL

....unless I get evidence to the contrary I will keep assuming Google does NOT give importance to CTR on search engine results.

[Bharathipriya]

No, i just predict that google may track the ip details and accordingly make them count as search volume.

[Fernando Veloso]

Originally Posted by alyonafrendo

I am doing my own testing on this one, I have some custom made software, to tell you the truth the results don't seem promising, I will keep the testing going for some more weeks but if I don't see any improvement in the SERPs I will keep assuming that Google does not give much importance to click through rate in SERPs

I have seen lots of evidence that CTR is not important, but I haven't seen any evidence that google gives CTR importance.

Even in this same thread you have people swearing that google gives importance to CTR in the SERPs however when you ask them how they know this they will tell you that a cousin of a friend of a friend knows because he is a friend of an employee at google!! LOL

....unless I get evidence to the contrary I will keep assuming Google does NOT give importance to CTR on search engine results.

Google MUST give importance to the fact people click more result #5 then result #3. Probably it's just the title, the description,but there is always something that attracts people to click that site and not the others.

Google wants the better results on top, so it's my best guess they track CTR on serp's and act accordingly.

What we don't know is much weight they give this in final results...

[chiwawa]

No it wont. You shouldnt try it on adsense else you'll get banned by google

[iresh]

Even their have such a thing called personal click counters, how they going to measure it

[Alyona The Publicist]

Originally Posted by chiwawa

No it wont. You shouldnt try it on adsense else you'll get banned by google

we are not discussing adsense, we are discussing the real SERP results