TheMadScientist - 3:24 am on Dec 14, 2012 (gmt 0)

I should add ... I don't think it's something as simple as 'page title', it's too easy to manipulate and Google changes those.

Descriptions? Possible effect on click-thru rate, if it's actually the one you wrote, but Google has also been known to change those, so I don't think that 'counts' for much if anything ... I'm pretty sure it doesn't for count anything at least singularly*, but could it have an influence when 'correctly matches' a combination of something else(s)? I'm not going to rule it totally out as 'having an influence', but it has to be in combination with something else to be counted for more than almost nothing (it definitely is not what's going to override link weight/inbound link text on it's own).

* I haven't tested for a while, but it didn't 'count' last I heard about a test being done on it.

Maybe it would be good to list things we can 'throw out' too, like:

Meta Keywords, we know that's not the answer.
Meta Description, not very likely as the answer, toss it for this question, unless you can think of how or see a way it's 'mixed in' with other factors.

Page Title, not on it's own for sure, but in combination with [something(s) ... what something(s)?]...

H1 / Headings Overall, not on their own, but in combination with [something(s) ... what something(s)?]...

Bounce Rate, as a whole, toss it, it's refuted too many places and in too many situations, but a subset* of bounce rate 'click-thru, click-back to results, take another action' is much more 'telling' than bounce rate itself, so I think it's something to explore personally...

* Hopefully we can agree to call this subset 'click back, reclick' for the sake of discussion and just remember it's actually a bit more than that they would have to use.

Also, I should correct what the algo can 'see', because I didn't note a couple 'technical details' in my reply to crobb305 in the other thread, so what the algo can 'see' is:

The algo knows 'when the visitor returned to the results', 'what did the visitor do upon returning: search for something else, click a different result, close the window, etc.', 'time between actions (search again, click a different result, closed window)' and 'did the visitor block the site upon returning' - It's possible I've missed some other action in the preceding, but the point is, it doesn't 'know' what link a visitor clicked on your page, so it can't tell if it was internal or external.

I guess another way to phrase the question I would like to explore is:

What other factor(s) - it's likely something tough to manipulate and possibly a group of factors - could be overriding the inbound links and causing pages to rank higher than it seems they should?