Traffic-Is traffic a key to better rankings?

[F_Rose]

Having lots of traffic does that get you better results on the search engines?

If so, what steps should we take to get lots of traffic to our site other than Google, Yahoo,MSN etc..

[soapystar]

other than google?

how does that make it a question for the google forum? :o

[F_Rose]

Maybe I haven't phrased the question right..

Does any heavy traffic from any source, let Google know you are a popular site and deserve to be ranked a lot better than the other site performing low in traffic..

[trinorthlighting]

Yes, if you have good links google will know that.

[Komodo_Tale]

This is an area of speculation among SEO professionals. There is no official statements about traffic as a ranking factor and Google employees are tight-lipped on this issue.

There is speculation that traffic became a factor when Big Daddy was installed.

How could Google know? Users who leave Google.com pages do leave a one url trail, however, Google has no way of knowing how long a person stays at an address or where they go next. It could be that thousands are visiting a link only to discover it is worthless, then leaving immediately.

However, for visitors with the Google Toolbar installed, it may be possible for Google to better track their browsing habits and capture enough information to make a dicision about quality.

[F_Rose]

One of our competitions site is very well listed on all search engines.

I have checked backlinks and don't see anything that should trigger it, I have checked site SEO, don't think it's that well optimized however thier is no spammy stuff on the site..

I just can't figure out, what are they doing right, that they are listed on top of each and every search engine.

The only thing I was able to determine is perhaps traffic, they are participating on many cpc compaigns such as YPN, Google etc..

Could that be the cause of having thier site ranked so well?

[dhaliwal]

i would agree to this as i have noticed this on one website after Big Daddy.

But, am not sure, how google will make out if a site is high traffic or not?

Alexa ranking isnt a very good thing to trust.

[MLHmptn]

But, am not sure, how google will make out if a site is high traffic or not?

Alexa ranking isnt a very good thing to trust.

Google Toolbar! :>~

[dhaliwal]

google toolbar, i dont think so.
people have to enable advanced options to let google collect the data

[graeme_p]

how google will make out if a site is high traffic or not?

They track a small percentage of clicks on search results. Presumably enough to give them a statistically valid sample.

They can also track whether people who clicked on a search result came back and tried sites that came up for that search, or tried other related searches.

They also have access to Google Analytics and Adsense data. I do not know if they have made any statements on how they use this data.

They could also purchase data from ISPs.

Google Toolbar and related software will give them some data. I have, often enough, turned on the Firefox Search Status extension and forgotten to turn it off again.

Lots of people typing URLs into search engines. This gives them some useful supplementary data on usage.

[F_Rose]

So if this is the case, traffic boosts ranking, what methods should I take to get lots of traffic to our site? Which type of traffic should I look for?

[trinorthlighting]

I would venture to say google tracks the user when they type in the keywords for your page, and how much they surf your site (Page views)

[r3nz0]

dont underestimate the adsense data!

and yes i think traffic is involved.

Just turn it arround; sites that popsup on SERPS page 1 orso has higher traffic than a site on page 2; in that case traffic is key nr 1

A site who do not exists has no traffic and is nowhere in the serps

[F_Rose]

"A site who do not exists has no traffic and is nowhere in the serps"

Should I look for other types of traffic such as affiliate marketing etc.?

If so, good suggestions would be appreciated..

[trinorthlighting]

Write articles about your products, do press releases. That helps get links...

[F_Rose]

"Write articles about your products, do press releases. That helps get links..."

Have you tried it?If so, what has it done to your site?

[wmuser]

If you have good inbound links Google will value it

[F_Rose]

"If you have good inbound links Google will value it"

Haven't had any luck, some good tips would be helpful..

[ashear]

It wouldn't be all that hard for them to see how long someone is staying on a site, with their toolbar.

[annej]

I just can't figure out, what are they doing right, that they are listed on top of each and every search engine.

The speculation on Google using traffic and time on site may be part of the equation but I also think there is something about valued sites beyond just their PR? For example I do believe that google gives .gov and .edu sites extra weight. It's really the only reason I can see why my site ranks as well as it does. I sure don't have massive inbound links.

[F_Rose]

"It wouldn't be all that hard for them to see how long someone is staying on a site, with their toolbar."

Is that said for Google searches only?

[ashear]

Its more than just Google searches. If you are on any page, Google has the ability to track how long you are spending on the site.

[Soze]

I really don't think traffic could matter that much. How would new sites ever compare to old ones? If traffic were a big deal, then the top results would always have a huge advantage over new sites because of how much traffic they get.

Also, you could always just buy tons of feeder traffic.

[jakegotmail]

age of the site plays a huge roll as well. can have older sites with far less backlinks rank much higher then new sites with twice as many backlinks.

[SullySEO]

Soze
"I really don't think traffic could matter that much. How would new sites ever compare to old ones? If traffic were a big deal, then the top results would always have a huge advantage over new sites because of how much traffic they get."

Not necessarily. Older pages drop for a couple of days then come back, and some don't come back at all. These fluctuations could be a way of scoring both new and old pages.

[tedster]

Perhaps it's not just raw traffic numbers,but rather the TREND of traffic, increasing or decreasing, that might also be figured in. Just a guess, but that is a factor I would try to fold in if I were building an algo. A page that is attracting more and more interest in recent times would be worth an extra boost.

I also see something going on in some highly commercial searches to push an assortment of pure information sites onto the first page. I'm thinking these pages could be scored by a different part of the algo and then intentionally boosted onto the first page.

[SullySEO]

The additional information pages you are seeing could be connected to the experiment they are doing. About 2 weeks ago, I received an email from the Google Base Team asking me to include additional attributes in my feed for "a search refinement experiment that surfaces Google Base content on Google.com"

I didn't do it and, oddly, have seen a decrease in referrals from Google.

I have seen increasing evidence that traffic trends matter, such as return visitors, bookmarks, length of visits, number of pages visited, etc. This is good and seems to be the only way they will get people to build sites for users rather than for search engines.

[annej]

can have older sites with far less backlinks rank much higher then new sites with twice as many backlinks

That could explain my sites success too. It's been around since 96 though a lot has been added and changed since then.

I also got curious as to how many edu and gov links I really had. In the first 500 inbound links using Yahoo (across the whole site, not just the homepage) there were only 30 edu links and 2 gov links. So maybe it doesn't affect my site as much as I thought it did.

<added>
Hmm, just looked at the Google back links. Does anyone know if they put important links there or are they just random? They did put the library of congress link pretty high even tho it's only a pr4 page.

It's hard to know what counts with Google.