tedster - 8:14 pm on Jun 28, 2012 (gmt 0)

They're somehow getting the stats via the browser...

Some ISPs are also willing to sell their user data, or so I've heard. And then there's the free wi-fi that Google sponsors here and there. Plenty user data for them via that avanue, I'd think.

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One problem I see in this discussion we're having is that some people are actually doing the experiment and looking at their Exit Rates, comparing that to Panda-smacked pages. Other people are trying to discuss this in an abstract, theoretical way.

The opening post makes it clear that claaarky was NOT being abstract. This was a personal journey done in concrete terms with real data on a real website - and one that matters for his livelihood. Theoretical discussion is pretty much beside the point, then, isn't it?

I just looked into one site that Panda hurt, and I do see I strong correlation between Exit Rate and harshly demoted pages. It's not 100% - more like 75% - but that makes the data worth taking quite seriously, I think - whether it fits into my theories of how Google works or not.

[edited by: tedster at 10:10 pm (utc) on Jun 28, 2012]