Robert_Charlton - 6:47 pm on Aug 4, 2010 (gmt 0)

I feel it's unlikely that direct clickthroughs from SERPs would be a significant algorithmic factor, because...

a) they could be easily manipulated
b) they're a vague signal.

Matt Cutts has explicitly said many times that Toolbar data, eg, isn't a direct ranking factor, because it's "noisy".

All that said, it could be argued that, if you have a very good site, then anything that increases your traffic can over the long term indirectly help boost your rankings, because exposure to your content is likely to get your site mentioned elsewhere, help attract inbound links, etc. Again, these are indirect effects that might appear over a long period of exposure.

I'd note, btw, that Place Pages themselves may turn out to be a better driver of business (not necessarily even traffic) than your site itself. I've found myself increasingly relying on Place Pages when browsing for local information. They're so often more informative, better designed, and faster loading than the majority of local sites that I find I'm frequently skipping the sites and just grabbing the information I need.