Do clicked links count more than unclicked ones?

[titanium]

I read on here recently that the simple fact of getting your link clicked in the SERPS will increase your position in the results. First time I'd heard that so not sure if it's true or not? The poster suggested getting your friends to search for your site and click the result, whatever SERPS position it was on.

Secondly, if that is the case, does Google give more weight to backlinks which are clicked? We all know backlinks on an authority site are worth more than 100 links on a spam site, but if for example you had a link on a PR4 page and another on a PR0 page, and the PR0 link got loads more clicks - would the value of the PR0 link increase?

 

[UKSBD]

I made this post back in 2011 - http://www.v1seo.co.uk/11/istraffic-rating-important-for-seo-post-panda-balancing/

It was all just speculation and one of my little theories.

It appears a number of people are beginning to think the same way though now.

I wouldn't think just getting friends clicking on links would do a lot, Google are too smart for that, but natural clicks in the results pages could be another matter.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

I be very dubious... and it has been discussed a lot on other forums. If it is a factor, it'd be a very minor one and unlikely to be affected by a few friends clicking.
If it were so, it wouldn't be at all difficult to set up a network of thousands of clickers to bump you up...
I've yet to see a fiver gig offering a thousand unique clicks on your serps entry, so it can't be true

 

[titanium]

Hmmm. I'm on the fence. When you're signed into Google they collect so much info about you. Let's say they deduce from your browsing habits that one of your major interests is ginger cats (as a random example), based on the wide range of ginger cat sites you frequent . Perhaps you can become an authority user on ginger cats and if you click a ginger cat link and spend time on the page, G can deduce that that particular ginger cat page is more valuable than another cat page. Let's say your friend likes tabbies and has no track record of ginger cat page use. If he clicks the same link and spends the same amount of time on the ginger site, no value is given because he is not a ginger cat authority user.

 

[leadprop]

I read on here recently that the simple fact of getting your link clicked in the SERPS will increase your position in the results.

This has never been confirmed and even if it does help it will be almost certainly be small. To be honest there are better things to put effort into than getting friends to click links in hope it will increase search positions.

 

[ifra]

the idea of increasing search positions by clicking the links is vague indeed.

 

[Mystro]

If it worked then it would be so easy to manipulate

never ever would be a signal,

 

[Ste Hughes]

google insist that user data such as time on site, bounce rates and all that has no influence on ranking. And I believe them... I've played with manipulating search volume and click rates. Made no difference.

Also, google has no idea what links you click on sites that arn't owned by them. so increasing the value of a link which is clicked means nothing as they can't track 99.9% of links.

 

[Ste Hughes]

Yes, clicks on website does matter in increasing your website authority but at the same time, user's stay time at website, bounce rate, conversion rate, these things are checked. If your website is having good position on search engine results, then it gains user's trust as most of the users clicked on links from 1-5 position.
If PR 0 website is giving you more clicks then it's good but you should also check whether people stay at your website or not. If people stays then in that case, obviously website with PR 0 is more reliable and good for you.

can you provide studies and proof that these user metrics you mentioned count

 

[fisicx]

...obviously website with PR 0 is more reliable and good for you.

Do you even know what PR0 means?

 

[fisicx]

Page rank is named after Larry Page (theinventor) and is a reflection of the links to WEB PAGE not a WEBSITE. It is a meaningless score that can be manipulated by Google

 

[ArifI]

I cant remember from where I got that but I have a document that claim to have information about "Reasonable Surfer Model" of Google that was actually patented and claim that Google actually track interactions with links to mark it as positive or negative. Here is the basic of RSM from patent (as per the doc)

"Systems and methods consistent with the principles of the invention may
provide a reasonable surfer model that indicates that when a surfer accesses a
document with a set of links, the surfer will follow some of the links with a
higher probability than others. This reasonable surfer model reflects the fact
that not all of the links associated with a document are equally likely to be
followed. Examples of unlikely followed links may include “Terms of Service”
links, banner advertisements, and links unrelated to the document."

There are some more explanation of this model that refers placing click able links where real people click the link may pass positive signals! Google do user tracking and click rate of links but whether they will rank it positively or negatively that depends on other factors. Bit difficult to explain in short thread so if you are interested PM me and I ll send you the PDF.

 

[UKSBD]

"It's pretty clear that any reasonable search engine would use click data on their own results to feed back into ranking to improve the quality of search results"

source: http://www.quora.com/Bing/Did-Bing-intentionally-copy-Googles-search-results

Like everything else though, just because it is from an ex Googler don't take it as gospel.

 

[RainWolf]

They have an impact - but there are other way more important aspects such as:

• the quality of your backlinks
• what people do once they get to your website
• how long they stay on your site, etc.

Overall, getting people to click on your links will only produce negligible results. Google observes how people interact with your site over time. Even if this strategy worked, you would have to get people clicking on your site everyday, at various times of the day, etc.

 

[StevePoster]

I read on here recently that the simple fact of getting your link clicked in the SERPS will increase your position in the results.

I think Google has nothing to do with it and it will only be abused if it is confirmed. There are more important aspects to learn from this clicking sessions in SERPS. The websites that are in the highest positions in SERPs is well established and old in the industry as well as these sites are trusted by their audience.

 

[titanium]

Thanks to those who answered the question!

I wasn't asking because I want a way to improve my SERPS. I am 99% content focused and I do just fine. I am just curious

 

[MageWorx]

I believe there's no correlation between link click-trough-rate and your site rankings.

If Google took that into account, you could get a software program to use a proxy rotation server that would repeatedly click your links to improve your website SERP progress. Alternatively, you could hire a team in India to click your website in the SERPs to shift it up

I assume that there's only one case when click through rate of a listing in Google may affect the search engine results page. It is with personalized search. That is, when you’re logged into your Gmail account, Google analyzes your clicks and modifies the results based on your patterns. That's it.

Again I think most SEOs have it wrong and I think all of this is over emphasized. It really only affects your website’s ranks or similar sites you visit regularly.

 

[puthre]

Most probably CTR on search results is not used directly to modify the ranking of the pages, but it is used as a feedback loop to to measure the efficiency of the ranking algorithms changes as a whole.

 

[FantasticCleaners]

I did not see mentions about the "Google bomb" - the grand scheme of clicking a link in the SERP to increase its rank and tie it to a particular keyword. Well it does not work from some time now, the reason being - it is too easy to manipulate the results this way. Needless to say, Google constantly changes the algorithms to avoid any kind of manipulation. However, various markers of user interactions are used to evaluate the page eg bounce rate, ctr, behaviour..