How Important Is Session Duration To SEO?

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  • SEO
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I currently have a group of broad keywords that I can target to generate significantly more traffic. However, these users will have a significantly lower session duration. How would Google's algorithms weigh the increase of traffic to my site along with the decrease in average session duration? Which is more important?

My ultimate goal is to generate traffic for display ad revenue, not to make sales.
#duration #important #seo #session
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Where does the traffic come from? If it's not from Google's web properties, they don't have any way to track how long it stays on your site. If it's from the search I find it likely that they're doing something with all the information they can gather. Click, bounce, and time on the site in case of a bounce.

    However, I would not fret about it. If the traffic helps with your goals, go with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author expmrb
      As you have said you are good with the traffic and you don't care about your sales. So, go with it, let Google send you traffic. Google doesn't care what a visitor does once they have landed to your site.
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      • Profile picture of the author willblieve
        Originally Posted by expmrb View Post

        As you have said you are good with the traffic and you don't care about your sales. So, go with it, let Google send you traffic. Google doesn't care what a visitor does once they have landed to your site.
        Well I've heard that high bounce rate and short session times lead to lowered search result rankings. So in the short term, I may see more traffic but if my natural rankings are lowered then that would eventually harm me.
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        • Profile picture of the author expmrb
          Originally Posted by willblieve View Post

          Well I've heard that high bounce rate and short session times lead to lowered search result rankings. So in the short term, I may see more traffic but if my natural rankings are lowered then that would eventually harm me.
          An avg. time duration is taken into account that's true. But if you are targeting a specific keyword and your bounce rate is high then its not negative. Yeah, after some time you may lose your #1 rank for that particular keyword but isn't that obvious that after some time new pages relevant or related to your webpage of that particular keyword will evolve which will produce more insightful and exclusive content material.
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    • Profile picture of the author willblieve
      Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

      Where does the traffic come from? If it's not from Google's web properties, they don't have any way to track how long it stays on your site. If it's from the search I find it likely that they're doing something with all the information they can gather. Click, bounce, and time on the site in case of a bounce.

      However, I would not fret about it. If the traffic helps with your goals, go with it.
      The source would be both from referral pages as well as organic searches. I believe Google would have access for time on site for both since I use Analytics. I'm wondering if they use my Analytics data to adjust where I rank for natural rankings.
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      • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
        Originally Posted by willblieve View Post

        The source would be both from referral pages as well as organic searches. I believe Google would have access for time on site for both since I use Analytics. I'm wondering if they use my Analytics data to adjust where I rank for natural rankings.
        I've seen no indication that they do. You know, researched and well-founded opinions from industry experts. However, this is a common form of wishful thinking.

        Google would gain nothing from ranking you based on your Analytics stats, they would compromise their data by giving you another tool to manipulate the results, and it would be quite unethical for them to give an edge to webmasters who use their own statistics software. Straightforward logic would say "no".

        But since you mentioned organic searches this is something I'd keep an eye on.
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  • Profile picture of the author jessicalad
    Yes session duration is important to SEO,as it gives idea that what keywords users like to seach for when searching for keywords to get to your website..
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  • Profile picture of the author alvinchua91
    "I currently have a group of broad keywords that I can target to generate significantly more traffic. However, these users will have a significantly lower session duration. How would Google's algorithms weigh the increase of traffic to my site along with the decrease in average session duration? Which is more important? "

    Google's algorithm takes into account both 'human' traffic as well as 'average session duration'. The exact percentage no one knows for sure, but I'll say that average session duration is pretty important as it usually ties in heavily with bounce rate too, and both affects SEO; that is why you see new but quality sites still improving in ranking despite lower traffic at least initially.
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