Popularity Component, click through popularity- does it exist? Options

[outofbounds]

Hello there!

I was reading a book by an SEO professional that defined the "popularity component" of SEO as "link popularity" + "click through/click popularity". I understand the link popularity as the # of link and the quality of those sites you link from. What i dont understand is this mention of "click through popularity".

do search engines really store all that data? every click through of every link on every page? the author states that "the major search engines and directories are measuring how often end users are clicking the links to your site and how long they are staying on your site and reading your web pages...."

I assume from a technical standpoint this is possible but the amount of data is kind of mind blowing isnt it? Google storing click stream data for all of its indexed pages and their associated links?

please advise.

thanks

[OldWelshGuy]

I would advise changing writers (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) This one is either confused, ill informed, or deliberately misleading.

Fact, Google does keep track of click throughs on Adwords, and more click throughs DOES affect the position where you show.

Fact Google appears to be being notified of click through data, but only in relation to the position in the current search.

here is an example of the code from a search.

onmousedown="return clk(this,'res',5)

This is notifying someone that the site at position #(5 in this case) was clicked on.

So in answer to your question No IMO they are not. I think that it is a simple relevance metric. If google has 10 million searches a day, and their average click through number is 4.8 (the average number from the above code), they then make a change in their algo. If the average rises it means people are having to look further down the list to find what they want, If it drops they have to go less down the page. It is a perfect measurement of SERP relevance IMO.

OWg

[Bernard]

Click-through popularity is easily skewed (just like Alexa traffic rankings). I think there was a (minor) search engine that used click-through popularity as a component of the ranking algo, but I cannot remember which one. It opens the algo up to abuse IMO.

[Randy]

I think there was a (minor) search engine that used click-through popularity as a component of the ranking algo, but I cannot remember which one.

I believe Eurekster attempts to factor the clickthru to a site into the equation from everything I've read Bernard. But as you said, it has issues which can lead to gross fraud unless a good bit of detection is done to control the weight that element is given.

[Steve Sardell]

I was reading a book by an SEO professional that defined the "popularity component" of SEO as "link popularity" + "click through/click popularity". I understand the link popularity as the # of link and the quality of those sites you link from. What i dont understand is this mention of "click through popularity

When breaking a one line snippet out of context it is most dificult to discern the authors intent. I would not go as far as OWG has stated with out reading the full paragraph text. If the author is meaning that click thrus are a measure of popularity he is on the spot. How many true visitors a site receives is a measure of popularity as is how many times the site is bookmarked. In SEO, the word popularity can take on multiple meanings. Do SEs tract it on a site basis? It is highly doubtful. As Bernard mentioned, it can easily be skewed. I have no idea who the author is, nor the work in question, but one of a SEO's jobs is to get those descriptions and copy text written to entice folks to first click onto the site, and then take action.

[excel30]

I did read Google did buy some company that had the technology to determine (or was assume had the tech) which were results were more beneficial to a vistor, as in if you clicked on a site it would know how long you were there before you came back and tried another site.

If you then clicked on a site and stayed there, it would assume you found exactly what you were looking for and that site was very relevant to your search in google.

Whether its true or not, the principle that we should be making good content sites and optimize our sites/pages to what is on the page (in other words not tricking anyone or using misleading titles etc) then it will make no difference to us an dwe can only benefit from this sort of technology.

[Jill]

Excel, that's the old "Direct Hit" technology, and exactly how that worked. It is currently owned by Ask Jeeves I think and many of the major search engines did used to use some form of it.

It's not clear as to whether any use it now. And it's even less clear as to whether Google has ever used anything like that. But they certainly might.

Since the other engines gave up on it after awhile, I've always assumed that it had some inherent flaws.

[outofbounds]

thanks everyone;

here is an exact quote from the author:

"Click Through Popularity:

The search engines are able to measure whether you end users are returning to the search engine results or staying on your web site. This measurement constitutes a page's "click-through popularity". Many search engines can measure the following: *the number of times end users click links to your site * how long end users visit your site * how often end users return to your site. If your target audience members continually click the links from the search engines to your site and they stay on your site to gather information, your site popularity increases... In other words, your target audience influences how visible your site is among search engines."

I dont understand how a SE could possible know return visitor information for your site unless they are doing some sort of persistant variable tracking or something. In any case, the volume of data would be enormous wouldnt it?

Is the overall concensus on this that we are misunderstanding the author? the way i read this, we are not talking about ppc tracking but organic search. that is what this book is about..

please advise if you can..

perplexed..

[OldWelshGuy]

In reality in the Western world there are only three SE's driving volume traffic. Google, Yahoo! & MSN, and AFAIK, none of them are doing this.

[lcobb]

Once upon a time you had to back up your assertions with documentation. Nowadays anyone can publish a book and unfortunately there is a lot of crap out there.

Larry

[Jill]

Like I said, when Direct Hit was being used years ago, that's very similar to how it worked (although not quite).

So maybe that's an old article?

[randfish]

I may not be the all-time world expert on search technology, but I know for a fact that the writer was not completely off her rocker.

CTR and the other stats mentioned in this forum are definitely being calculated and recorded by Google/Yahoo/MSN. All you have to do to be sure is to read the fine print when you download their toolbars. They say specifically that this data will be collected unless you prefer otherwise (and check a box saying - don't use my data).

I also know this because about a year ago, I tried to have a patent lawyer register a patent on collecting certain types of data through a toolbar to be used in search engine algorithim results. Of course, Yahoo already had the patent on it and a variant of my patent was held by a company owned by Google.

So, while CTR and time spent at a site may not yet be in the algorithim, you can bet the search engines are tracking this data and may put it to use later.

[OldWelshGuy]

Sure they are doing some stuff through the toolbar, but that is not what was stated originally.

[sharithurow]

Hi everyone-

Hey, I recognize my own writing when I read it.

Teoma does use click-through popularity, and so does AdWords. When I wrote my book and created my presentations, this was fact.

I always fact check before I write my books or publish any articles.

Next time, how about going to the source? Some of your comments were rather rude. I don't think any of you would like it if I published rude and inaccurate comments. I'm sure I can find a lot of "crap" that forum members have published.

My email is on both my web sites. All you had to do was ask instead of make incorrect assumptions. (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Bill Slawski]

Google has a patent application pending on similar technology, too. (Unfortunately, it appears that the US Patent and Trademark server that holds that information is down this morning, or I'd point you to the right number.)

While they may be patenting a technology like that used by Direct Hit, there's no indication that they are presently using it, or intend to use it. Though I'm not sure that it's really that good of an idea.