jfranktoo

I'm posting this in Google rather than SEO because Google is the only one that matters to me. Hope this is right for the posting.

If you look at the sites at the top of Google searches, they all fit the search term in some way. The searches I've looked have got some high prs on page one, but also include pr0 sites - a few. Some have got a lot of content, some have very little. Content seems to be a rather ill defined concept.

Some only touch the search term marginally with the information they present.

Now Google's main aim they say is to improve web content and standards, and they advise using the inbound links to do it, as we know.

Also they must use depth of content somehow in their algorithm, as one of the factors.

But surely a good measure of popularity of a site amongst the punters would be the number of people going to the site, i.e. traffic

Don't you experts think they take account of this factor, too. If so, they can't tell anyone that this is so otherwise we'll all have cunning software programmes to constantly click different people on to the site.

What do you experts say? (I've tried to search previous posts for this topic but cannot find any)

John

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Bagi Zoltán

John, google sorts the webpages by relevance and importance. You may find not so relevant websites among the results, since the offset the lack of relevance by the importance. I'm thinking about the real-time PR, so the PR0 can't deceive you.

Personally i think that the not all traffic influance directly the rankings. You may have visitors through paid ads, text links and from search engine engines, sorry if i missed something. I guess ads have no influance on rankings since they are usually displayed by javascript. Links have effect on SERP since importance and relevance (link popularity) also flow over them. And finally the search engine hits. I'm convinced that google algo measures the relevance of the different listed websites by studying the user's behaviour. I mean if you're not satisfied with one result you supposed to go back to the ranking page and select another webpage, which is a really nice feedback for google, and the algo have the opportunity to correct the relevance of the left webpage for that certain keyphrase. The browsing time at the result page before you arrive back to the previuosly visited ranking page can be one more feedback factor.

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jfranktoo

Bagi, that is the first time I've ever heard of that. It is very logical and the sort of thing that the Google algo would be capable of.

Let me make sure I've got it right.

1) If visitors click on your site for a given search term and then click off quickly - the bounce rate - then the algo would notice that and would downgrade the site a bit. Is that what you are saying?
2) If the site is "sticky" and visitors stay on it longer than they stay on other sites using the same search term then that could affect the algo in a good way.
3) Total traffic does not matter much to the algo.

I'm quite sure that I could design my front page so that they stick on the site for a bit longer than they do now. I now make it incredibly easy for them to go somewhere else. I could use New Window instead of Same Window for example for links. All my external links could go into New Windows, therefore, keeping them on my site for longer.

I can also make them go through three pages in turn to finalise what they want to know.

I know, I know, before you all jump at me, I've got to think of the visitors experience as well. I do that, and will continue to do that, the visitor will not feel a thing.

This is important to me because I am designing a new site to go into heavily used search terms with tons of competition.

Thanks Bagi, again,

John

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Self catering cottage in Appin by Glencoe Scotland

Bagi Zoltán

Opening external links in new window is a good idea, but you should keep the visitors at your site by the content. Lot of webmasters and script use some redirection in order to disable the opportunity to return to the ranking page of google. I think the rankings are very valuable feedback for all of us, so when your site drop you will know that you must work harder. For instance increase the link popularity, improve content or check the broken links. As i read you understood everything from my previous post, but that comes only from my observation and knowledge so others may experience different things.

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dlrogersnfl

I rank on the first page on google for my website www.newcondohomes.com for the search: new condo homes. No.2 or 3, depending on the day, out of 6-12 million, also depending on the day. My PR is 1. I don't claim to have the answers because I still don't have the traffic I would expect with that position. But I don't think PR is the end all to success, at least not with Google.

charlesgan

early this year, there is a discussion where google is heading to this direction. traffic will be a factor. But not now.

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