• Google Considers Visitors in Algo

  Filed under Google
  Jul 10

  There is a post at SearchEngineWatch.com titled Visitor Numbers Impact Algorithm, SERPs. Basically, there is a theory that google takes into consideration the number of visitors to a site and how long they stay as part of their ranking algorithm.

  I’ve had this theory for years. But why I had the theory had nothing to do with a white paper, it had to do with a photograph that was taken during a tour of the Googleplex. (I’m digging for this photograph, all of the description comes from memory.)

  About two years ago, I read an article about a chap who was really excited he got to tour the googleplex. He, of course, blogged all about it and told people he was not allowed to say anything. He did, however take pictures. In one of the pictures, was a blurry picture of an ancient computer monitor. I actually washed the photo through photoshop to sharpen the image and was amazed at what I found.

  On the top two thirds of the screen was what appeared to be a line drawing of a world map. Below that were columns of text that appeared to be a running list of searches. The first column was the IP address of the searcher and a date and time. The next was the phrase that was used in the search and following that was the search url that was clicked on followed by the ranking of the phrase of the SERP. Now all of this seems like no big deal information.

  But the kicker was there was an asterick next to the SERP if the ranking of the chosen url was more than a ranking of 10 — meaning the searcher had to go to the second page of SERPs to find a result they believed to be the most accurate.

  I remember I was fascinated by that picture. I brought it up for discussion at one of the boards I posted on and realized I was the only one who took any interest in it at all. Everyone else I spoke was like “yeah, so?”

  In my mind, however, it appeared to be clear evidence that google *was* indeed looking at the results people clicked upon and using it to tweak their algo. Why else would they analyze such information? Why mark search results that were not on the first page?

  Perhaps because if someone has to go to the second page of results to find a reliable result, the machine is either a) not giving good results or b) mis-intrepreting the language. For example, someone might types in ’submarines’ and got search results about underwater ships instead of sandwiches.

  And really, it does make sense to look at the human element of search results. If a certain result is chosen for a certain phrase — and that person doesn’t click the back button to try another search result — over a long period of time, with visitors from many different ips it seems that this *could* be a viable way to find good SERPS, or at least be another element of the algorithm.

  One reason could be that the same search used in different times of the year may need to give different results. Ever notice that in early January a search for “rose” will get you results about the Rose parade while a search for “rose” in February will get you a flower company?

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a huge part of google’s algorithm, but I do believe that it is one of the elements used. At least, it is something to think about.

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