TheMadScientist - 2:49 am on Dec 13, 2012 (gmt 0)

I don't understand what it is about the site that makes it "useful" to a visitor (or what metric could define it as such), unless an immediate click to an affiliate link equals visitor satisfied (or if the visitor returns back from the affiliate site only to click on the next affiliate link in the list, and so on).

But in the case you're talking about (immediate click to an affiliate link), to Google, the visitor 'disappeared' and did not return to the results, which would almost have to be interpreted as 'visitor satisfied' by an algo, even if it doesn't make complete sense to us WRT 'the site clicked' satisfying the searcher, because we know it really didn't ... They would have had to 'click again' to find what they were looking for, is what is sounds like to me ... Definitely fascinating and interesting ... Very glad you shared what you're seeing!

[edited by: TheMadScientist at 2:54 am (utc) on Dec 13, 2012]