Using Moz’s ranking data on over 200,000 domains, combined with multiple SimilarWeb data points—including traffic, page views, bounce rate, time on site, and rank—the Search Ranking Factors study was able to measure how these metrics corresponded to higher rankings.
These metrics differ from the traditional SEO parameters Moz has measured in the past in that they are primarily user-based metrics. This means that they vary based on how users interact with the individual websites, as opposed to static features such as title tag length. We'll find these user-based metrics important as we learn how search engines may use them to rank webpages, as illustrated in this excellent post by Dan Petrovic.
Every marketer and SEO professional wants to know if there is a correlation between web search ranking results and the website’s actual traffic. Here, we’ll examine the relationship between website rankings and traffic engagement to see which metrics have the biggest correlation to rankings.
You can view the results below:
Traffic correlated to higher rankings
For the study, we examined both direct and organic search visits over a three-month period. SimilarWeb’s traffic results show that there is a generally a high correlation between website visits and Google’s search rankings.
Put simply, the more traffic a site received, the higher it tended to rank. Practically speaking, this means that you would expect to see sites like Amazon and Wikipedia higher up in the results, while smaller sites tended to rank slightly worse.
This doesn't mean that Google uses traffic and user engagement metrics as an actual ranking factor in its search algorithm, but it does show that a relationship exists. Hypothetically, we can think of many reasons why this might be the case:
- A "brand" bias, meaning that Google may wish to treat trusted, popular, and established brands more favorably.
- Possible user-based ranking signals (described by Dan here) where uses are more inclined to choose recognizable brands in search results, which in theory could push their rankings higher.
- Which came first—the chicken or the egg? Alternatively, it could simply be the case that high-ranking websites become popular simply because they are ranking highly.
Regardless of the exact cause, it seems logical that the more you improve your website’s visibility, trust, and recognition, the better you may perform in search results.
Engagement: Time on site, bounce rate, and page views
While not as large as the traffic correlations, we also found a positive correlation between a website’s user engagement and its rank in Google search results. For the study, we examined three different engagement metrics from SimilarWeb.
- Time on site: 0.12 is not considered a strong correlation by any means within this study, but it does suggest there may be a slight relationship between how long a visitor spends on a particular site and its ranking in Google.
- Page views: Similar to time on site, the study found a small correlation of 0.10 between the number of pages a visitor views and higher rankings.
- Bounce rate: At first glance, with a correlation of -0.08, the correlation between bounce rate and rankings may seem out-of-whack, but this is not the case. Keep in mind that lower bounce rate is often a good indication of user engagement. Therefore, we find as bounce rates rise (something we often try to avoid), rankings tend to drop, and vice-versa.
This means that sites with lower bounce rates, longer time-on-site metrics, and more page views—some of the data points that SimilarWeb measures—tend to rank higher in Google search results.
While these individual correlations aren’t large, collectively they do lend credence to the idea that user engagement metrics can matter to rankings.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean to imply that Google or other search engines use metrics like bounce rate or click-through rate directly in their algorithm. Instead, a better way to think of this is that Google uses a number of user inputs to measure relevance, user satisfaction, and quality of results.
This is exactly the same argument the SEO community is currently debating over click-through rate and its possible use by Google as a ranking signal. For an excellent, well-balanced view of the debate, we highly recommend reading AJ Kohn’s thoughts and analysis.
It could be that Google is using Panda-like engagement signals. If a site’s correlated bounce rate is negative, that means that the website should have a lower bounce rate because the site is healthy. Similarly, if the time that users spend on-site and the page views are higher, the website should also tend to produce higher Google SERPs.
Global Rank correlations
SimilarWeb’s Global Rank is calculated by data aggregation, and is based on a combination of website traffic from six different sources and user engagement levels. We include engagement metrics to make sure that we’re portraying an accurate picture of the market.
If the website has a lower Global Rank on SimilarWeb, then the website will generally have more visitors and good user engagement.
As Global Rank is a combination of traffic and engagement metrics, it’s no surprise that it was one of the highest correlated features of the study. Again, even though the correlation is negative at -0.24, a low Global Rank is actually a good thing. A website with a Global Rank of 1 would be the highest-rated site on the web. This means that the lower the Global Rank, the better the relationship with higher rankings.
As a side note, SimilarWeb’s Website Ranking provides insights for estimating any website’s value and benchmarking your site against it. You can use its tables to find out who’s leading per industry category and/or country.
Methodology
The Moz Search Engine Ranking Factors study examined the relationship between web search results and links, social media signals, visitor traffic and usage signals, and on-page factors. The study compiled datasets and conducted search result queries in English with Google’s search engine, focusing exclusively on US search results.
The dataset included a list of 16,521 queries taken from 22 top-level Google Adwords categories. Keywords were taken from head, middle, and tail queries. The searches ranged from infrequent (less than 1,000 queries per month), to frequent (more than 20,000 per month), to enormously frequent with keywords being searched more than one million times per month!
The top 50 US search results for each query were pulled from the datasets in a manner that did not account for location or personalization in a location- and personalization-agnostic manner.
SimilarWeb checked the traffic and engagement stats of more than 200,000 websites, and we have analytics on more than 90% of them. After we pulled the traffic data, we checked for a correlation using keywords from the Google AdWords tool to see what effect metrics like search traffic, time on site, page views, and bounce rates—especially with organic searches—have upon Google’s rankings.
Conclusion
We found a positive correlation between websites that showed highly engaging user traffic metrics on SimilarWeb’s digital measurement platform, and higher placement on Google search engine results pages. SimilarWeb also found that a brand’s popularity correlates to higher placement results in Google searches.
With all the recent talk of user engagement metrics and rankings, we’d love to hear your take. Have you observed any relationship, improvement, or drop in rankings based on engagement? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
That's so naive:
"the more traffic a site received, the higher it tended to rank"
I'd put it another way:
The higher the rank, the more traffic is received.
We really don't know which way the causation goes. There are plenty of cases where traffic could lead, both directly and indirectly to higher rankings. Of course, the reverse is also true, but knowing the degree to which the correlation exists is fascinating and useful, IMO. In particular, I love seeing when a site starts to grow other forms of traffic (direct, referring links, social, paid, etc) and then gets additional rankings and search traffic.
Also... did you read the paragraphs right after that quote? Roy goes into a lot of detail about the relationship and potential causes.
I've certainly seen cases in which massive referral traffic (supported by the type of natural social sharing you'd expect to see) have led to substantial rankings without significant (or any) links. Long-term, of course, this leads to a situation like the one you (Dessislava) described. But before the rankings came there was certainly strong traffic and little else that would have led to organic ranking results.
I'd definitely agree and say it is a little of both. I think a website has to have some sort of presence in the rankings before it just ranks high from referral/direct/social traffic. But I think websites starting from ground zero and getting referral/direct/social traffic end up naturally getting linked to thus helping with 'SEO' and can ultimately drive rankings. So traffic can definitely have an impact on rankings...and of course vice versa!
I've seen multiple examples where a website uses Adwords to capture traffic, the traffic interacts really well with the landing page, and before long that page ranks in organic search. The only variable that changed before and after the Adwords campaign was set up, was how much traffic was sent to the page.
Therefore the statement, "the more traffic a site received, the higher it tended to rank", holds true.
Hi Roy, informative article that reaffirmed some of my thoughts, thank you.
With these results I'd love to see a follow on article on the best methods to boost user engagement and especially bounce rate.
Some of my most heavily researched killer content articles have the highest bounce rate. Not that bounce rate is terrible if time on page is long but I'm sure a long time on page plus low bounce rate would be ideal.
Good idea, will take it mind. Thanks
Interesting chart. Behavior signals should certainly be tended to for a healthy site. I'm not convinced correlation implies causation though. I would expect a big brand to have more traffic, a better user experience, a larger link network, higher domain authority, and a higher organic ranking. But the ranking might just come from the links and domain authority rather than the traffic.
Agreed - we can't say definitively which way the causation runs. That said, in my experiments with IMEC Labs, we've been able to show numerous times that CTR and long clicks vs. short clicks (which are forms of engagement metrics) have a fast, direct impact on rankings. More on that in here: https://www.slideshare.net/randfish/onsite-seo-in-2...
Having a big brand don't promise you nothing, I saw big brands that 90% from their traffic is from Advertising and their bounce rate and time on site sucks,
It happens mostly in the gambling and binary industry
User engagement really matters. As i always believe, user engagement should be one of the most basic criteria to analyze a website's effectiveness, we rarely find such article which says about the importance of user engagement. If we talk about Google, then we must keep in mind, the algorithm work like a human brain, what is good or what is bad - the algorithm is smart enough to control the things. Its obvious if a website is having high user engagement rate and low bounce rate, must be performing up to the mark.
Very very effectively written article @Roy
Hey Roy!
Excellent analysis of site engagement and how it correlates to rankings!
I have noticed ups and downs in rankings depending on site engagement.
I have a client that owns 3 different restaurant (Steakhouse, Fishhouse, Italian). The Steakhouse has better site engagement than the Fishhouse and Italian Restaurant, and also has better rankings and visibility.
I haven't seen a major correlation between site/user engagement and rankings, but there are a few cases where site engagement was down for the month and next month organic traffic drops.
Once again, excellent article!.
User engagement is really matters and as per my opinion engagement can indicate that your content appeals to your viewers or doesn't. Engagement metrics could reveal which networks are more valuable for your organization and where advertising and marketing teams must commit resources. This article based on facts and research, i really appreciate.
I'm convinced that pogoing back into the SERPs is the biggest user engagement metric. After all G is in the business of trying to improve their user satisfaction, and if you pogo back, they've clearly listed the wrong page.
Everyone needs their site to Number One on Google who don'ts ?
Even You already rank in 1 position than Google will examine a closer look at your site. With in-Depth algorithmic analysis or even manually review :) after that big drop :(
No one knows how to get number 1 on Google, not precisely in any case
In Google search console click though rate and position of keywords in SERPS can definitely help to find out what number of Clicks Does a No 1 Ranking In Google
Hope this will help
BTW Good work Roy
Thank You :)
Nice study Roy. I really appreciate all the efforts you put in writing this article. If you want to correlate between ranking and traffic then i dont think this way. Traffic has nothing to do with ranking or very little. Its all about backlinks.
The problem with this theory is that not every website uses Google Analytics, so apart from dwell time, Google doesn't "see" pages per session, bounce rate and other on-site events. Also, bounce rate can be adjusted by various methods that fire events, so I doubt that bounce rate would be a metric Google relies on.
UX is certainly a ranking factor but it is unlikely that Google would rely on data they can't measure on the majority of websites they crawl.
Google can see everything if you are browsing in chrome
"Regardless of the exact cause, it seems logical that the more you improve your website’s visibility, trust, and recognition, the better you may perform in search results."
Touché!
A couple of things have always been simple:
#1 - Produce great content amplified by catchy titles.
#2 - Avoid resorting to link baits as it boosts bounce rate and devalues audience trust loyalty.
#3 - Engage with your audience as much as possible, to help them out within your capacity. It pays off.
#4 - Be consistent with your voice and style - it's critical for brand recognition.
Thanks for useful information.High Traffic can be get by seo , paid search marketing , Social but if the site not having high relevant content then they need to review or contact any good consultant for there website client engagement process.
This study is a joke. Have you performed any kind of significance test when assuming there is a correlation with variables such as bounce rate or time on site? Of course the correlation isn't going to be exactly zero even if you take two uncorrelated variables.
Furthermore, it's obvious sites with higher rankings will have more traffic. What would be more interesting would be to look at sites with a high volume of PPC traffic.
Great post! That's true. A site with huge traffic but a high bounce rate means that they're not a highly qualified public, and target or strategy must be review.
Engagement is important first for the user as Roy said. Google, if not already, will take it in its ranking algorithm and as SEO & Marketing manager, we do have to think first for users satisfaction.
Back links are still important in ranking factors too. A website with no back links will never show up to the first page of Google !
I have a serious doubt about content though, website like Ebay fall over, but it looks like Panda does not harm anymore.
It is an amazing article and most importantly it is supported by facts and research .. regardless to the result of the study, it was very difficult for me to believe that the high traffic does not correlate to high rankings ... in a similar way it was very difficult for me to believe that the Bouncing rate does not correlate with rankings .. the result of this study makes sense .. indeed ... Thank you for sharing
Surprised to see visits from search and total visits being a stronger signal than bounce rate and time on site. Maybe it's CTR in SERPs that helps here?
This can mean something for sites that rely on seasonal traffic spikes. Especially since it's the current and previous month that are so highly valued in traffic numbers.
We are working on CTR study, hopefully will be ready soon
The higher the website ranks it receive more traffic whether it is from organic search or social but how's it possible saying that the traffic can get the website rank higher in search results ? I have always noticed that the engagement on any post or article can get it viral but is there any possibility getting the website rank higher based on the virality of that post or article?
The post is about engagement and ranking correlation and we do not know which way the causation actually works. You can refer to the previous post about the user behavior and ranking correlation and understand better about this topic: https://moz.com/blog/user-behaviour-data-as-a-ranking-signal
Fantastic study! Traffic can influence rankings if a page is getting it from various sources. I hope, people will understand that it's not only about getting traffic from FB ads or adwords and start expecting to see a spike in traffic.
Produce something that even Google can't afford to rank you lower!
Excellent contribution served me a lot in my learning of this Seo and all its external techniques that can help improve our work, thanks you still sharing your content
Thanks for useful information.
Thanks David, engagement stats are very important signal and I'm sure the engagement stats will become a serious factor in the future.
Nice post roy, But I've study & acquiring experience about SEO metrics from various well known blog & expert. But the opinion & advise is different from person's to person blog to blog. Actually I think Google is most mysterious in their marketing & site controlling.
But the Ranking factor's you listed in your post are most relevant & similar to most of the expert's.
www usaforexsignal com
Well Roy, for my point of view google doesn't know what users are doing on websites. So user engagement is a very non-specific phrase which can mean different things in different contexts.
Actually they do. Google has chrome data.
And Android data :-) Check the ToS on both of those - they say they can collect and use all the user's browser usage/clickstream activities.
They collect everything
There is not a chicken or the egg cliche` here .
(1) First Its content, Without content you have NADA no <body> </body> .. ah that was punny,
(2) Then Clicks without clicks no one knows about your site because nobody has ever seen it. Once they visit the site they can come back, share it with their circle and so on.
(3) Then rankings The whole link popularity and gaining organic ranking is a part of Googles original Algorithm.
Practically speaking, this means that you would expect to see sites like Amazon and Wikipedia higher up in the results, while smaller sites tended to rank slightly worse. lol that's cute.
lower bounce rate is often a good indication of user engagement.
Yeah I don't know if that will count that much as a ranking factor because of the double causation while I do agree that lower bounce rate is a seemly good thing to have.
Think about how many popular websites are out there that you bounce after looking at the landing page ie Wikipedia, dictionary.com, local weather etc you get the info and bounce. Doesn't mean its a bad website, in fact the opposite can be said.
Roy Hinkis,
As I read this, the image in my head was of a canary in a mine. Engagement metrics might not deliver on being the be-all and end-all many have made them out to be, but they do, as you assert, provide value in a number of ways, especially regarding the quality/health of a website and its content.
For example, often in auditing the content of a website, I'll notice that even relevant, meaningful content has very little interaction associated with it, which leads site owners to think their writers and strategists missed the mark. In actuality, it just as likely to be an SEO issue or, most commonly, a failure to promote/amplify the content via social media.
Even the best content needs "help."
And as the sharing increases, as staffers become active and engaging via social media, it's common to see on-page activity increase, link growth and previously dormant pages starting to move in the SERPs.
Yes, engagement metrics matter, just not in the way that many people assume. But that's just fine.
AS.
And this could be result an new generation of cheating.
Before we have an links and gold rush for links everywhere. Even on unrelated sites, even sitewide links. Just more and more links was ultimate goal for ranking and SEO. We all know how this finished...
Today with time on site, CTR, bounce rate, search visits, etc. seems as hard to be manipulate. But this is wrong. Some modern day cyber criminals created and ruling botnet networks with thousand infected computers. Can be ten thousand or even much more. And that bots can be on mobile phones, desktop PCs or even embedded computers (like routers, IoT). So i thinking what will happen if cyber criminals join forces with "black haters"? Could this result modern BH techniques working without links? How search engines could prevent this?
Yes - i was participant in Rand's testing and i saw incredible results within minutes. And this "clicking team" was around 400-500 persons in wild. What about if we do rushing with over 10k participants?
PS: I don't have botnet nor using one. Just thinking about some possibilities. And most of you knows - if there is cheating possibility probably someone can exploit it.
It is not that simple, and certainly impossible in verticals where there is even slightly more competition. Not to mention that while CTR is stronger as a signal the other traffic and engagement metrics are less so.
Google probably considers other factors as well into the equation- I'm guessing that a site that has lots of visits but fails miserably to provide other signals (links on a domain and page level, branded searches, social mentions...) makes the number of visits to be regarded lower in that separate instance.
What I'm thinking is that while an unusually high signal that is easy to scale up shows often on the expense of others that are harder to produce, it would be regarded equally valuable through a number of occurances.
Debatable.. if i get more visit then i will rank higher...can be true and cannot be true and sad to see return visit not making cut in your study. i guess return visit is an important engagement metric. Also, not a big fan of Alexa's and Simlarweb's Global Rank, it is very far from exact data.
And sites of which Google has no data? I think Google can't ignore so large data set.
Also. If Google considers these metrics (user behavior)... this could not cause the new sites are at a disadvantage?
Great article Roy, user engagement and experience is all that would matter the most in the future. We have already seen the mobilegeddon and https factor started to play their roles. Overall I would agree with you, more traffic means better ranks regardless of what way you are going to put it forth.
Comment removed by the user.