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Does Google use the clicks you receive from it's search engine as a ranking factor?

by Sirr
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
As the title asks, Does Google use the clicks you receive from it's search engine as a ranking factor?

What I mean by this is lets say my site is on page 2 for the keyword "Bull Terrier Pet Food", and on that search a user finds nothing from glancing on page 1, clicks to page 2, sees my site and clicks it. If a percentage of users for that keyword were to visit my site for that keyword would Google use this as a factor to move me up the rankings?

If my page title, and description was better than the competition's, and I was receiving more clicks for that keyword, surely this would be an indication that my site is relevant to that keyword, and would show more popularity. Or am I wrong?
#clicks #engine #factor #google #ranking #receive #search
  • Profile picture of the author linkassistant
    First off, nobody knows for sure.

    Second, some studies discovered a correlation between higher CTR and higher rankings, but it's not possible to tell whether that's because higher-positioned listings get more clicks, or because frequently clicked pages are positioned higher.

    Well, some people believe Google looks at bounce rates to calculate a site's rank. But those who don't believe this (and Google officially said they didn't use any Analytics data in the ranking algo) called the signal noisy and easily spammable - http://www.custard.co.uk/is-google-u...rank-websites/
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    • Profile picture of the author ajjaytea
      google see your web popularity of the large number of incoming links to your website from high pagerank web
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      • Profile picture of the author Sirr
        Originally Posted by ajjaytea View Post

        google see your web popularity of the large number of incoming links to your website from high pagerank web
        Where are the studies/analysis into this? I'm interested in facts.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sirr
      Originally Posted by linkassistant View Post

      First off, nobody knows for sure.

      Second, some studies discovered a correlation between higher CTR and higher rankings, but it's not possible to tell whether that's because higher-positioned listings get more clicks, or because frequently clicked pages are positioned higher.

      Well, some people believe Google looks at bounce rates to calculate a site's rank. But those who don't believe this (and Google officially said they didn't use any Analytics data in the ranking algo) called the signal noisy and easily spammable - Is Google using bounce rates to rank websites?
      Thanks LinkAssistant. Will check out that link now.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steve Waller
    I think Google's official line is that they don't use CTR from SERPS as a ranking factor/signal but I remember seeing a few experiments that concluded the opposite.

    As with any signal, it's only one of many and alone it won't necessarily improve your rankings.

    There's never any harm in optimizing your title/meta for clicks though - it makes good business sense. If it works for the paid ads, why wouldn't it work for natural too?
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