search engine following trail

can they follow you?

[mattlamb]

Is it possible for a search engine which you have used to find a site to keep a track of you and see if you stay on the site or even maybe purchase something?

[Stefan]

Perhaps. I believe that, at least, if you're using the Google toolbar in IE, they're tracking your moves. Probably any "toolbars" will do this, such as Alexa, etc.

I'm not 100% on this, so if anyone knows otherwise, feel free to correct me.

[topsites]

Yes it is possible such as if the URL given by the search engine was an affiliate/sponsor tracking link, via the use of cookies.

Most of these, the information collected is:
1) Where you went.
2) If you made a purchase, the amount of commission and maybe the amount total.
3) Number of pages visited, possibly which ones.
4) Maybe some OS info such as browser, screen-size, et.al.

What can not be collected by the engine is:
- Your name, street address, age, sex, phone number, etc, etc, etc.

Now if the link was clean, the simple answer is no.

[mattlamb]

I was interested from the point view that if google can tell if someone made a purchase then they might feel the sites PR might be upgraded, as the site has more importance than a site that no one buys from?

[topsites]

Let me explain it thusly:

It IS possible a site has a great free section and another paid section, and lets just say people are never in a mood to spend money but they love the free stuff and keep coming back: This site is least likely to lose ranking and may possibly gain some.

However, for a site expressly designed for the purpose of folks spending money: If visitors never make a purchase at that site, that may have to do with stickyness / conversion factors... So if visitors are not staying at a site / are leaving without intent of returning, then this likely can affect ranking over time. More so because people will no longer be interested in the link than because of the actual purchase factor, however, if no purchases are being made, this may be taken as a clue of possible things to come.

Whether google increases / decreases PR if google's money depends on it, that I doubt... Whether google increases / decreases PR specifically because people are / are not making purchases, I find the answer here is No as well.
In the end, one can always spend money to affect PR as well, thou I find natural traffic is still the best.

[g1smd]

Any site with adsense panels on it is letting Google track your progress through that site, and through any others with adsense that you travel on to.