Open Letter To Google ® Re Search Technology

How Factoring in Site "Stickiness" Would Improve Search Results

[Traveler]

Google:

I am formatting this suggestion using your preferrred method:

Fast and to the Point

Please consider this:

You have Google Toolbars collecting data constantly.
We know that you now know a lot about us. (WebmasterWorld users-See Alexa.com search results-click on the LOGO for each site for "details about each site"- this is what Google ALREADY knows about your site!)

Please, we beg you: USE THIS INFORMATION NOW!

You KNOW how LONG people stay on a site, how many pages they view, and where they go next...

Please factor this "stickiness" into your algo!

Think about it:

IF users click on Site A and stay 5 minutes and Site B and stay 5 seconds, shouldn't that tell you that Site A is a better match?

Wouldn't it make sense to add PR to sites that users find useful?

Wouldn't that cut down on spamming that leads users to useless pages that are simply optimized well?

Wouldn't that encourage webmasters and designers to create product that would be of interest to the users who would stick around?

Wouldn't that help new but BETTER sites that have premiered recently at least have a fighting chance to claw their way up the SERPs by being better?

Google-
It's time for the next step! Show the stickiest sites towards the top of the results pages!

You are, and have been miles ahead of everyone else.

But, isn't it time now for your next quantum leap?

We'll be waiting......

[BigDave]

I think the point that people are making is that there is no *need* to do this.

Most people are happy with their search results most of the time. Get rid of spam and it would be that much better.

They might already be using this information as a very small factor in the algo. I just hope that it never becomes more than a very small part of it.

[jomaxx]

Here's another thought... Probably the toolbar knows when a page is requested, but is not so tightly integrated with the browser that it knows when the page has fully loaded. As a result, this could end up penalizing fast-loading pages and rewarding slow-loading ones.

I think all these objections could be overcome with careful work, but you'd want to design a search engine from the ground up to make use of this data. If there's a single great idea which made Google the best search engine out there, it's Pagerank; there's no need to change that now, and I expect them to ride that horse as long as possible. But measuring surfer behaviour could be the single great idea that makes the NEXT Google successful.