Does CTR factor into Google organic rankings

[SlimKim]

Yep, that's the question ... does ctr factor into the equation used to determine organic rankings at Google?

I would think so, but what do i know? And maybe it's common knowledge, what say ye?

I have one particular case where I'm the # 3 listing and the # 1 and # 2 spots are held by wikipedia. This site is about a month old and I'm thinking ctr should be excellent and maybe that will help gain ground on wikipedia.

[edited by: SlimKim at 3:12 am (utc) on June 4, 2008]

[tedster]

Here's what I know for sure. Google patents do mention tracking the impressions that a url gets in the SERPs, and potentially using that metric in a number of ways. But click tracking scripts only appear in the basic links once in a while. So they're not tracking every click, only enough to gather a statistically significant sample.

They also mention watching for users who come back to the SERPs quickly and try another result, or even enter a modified version of the same query.

So I'd say it's not exactly a true CTR that's being measured. A great snippet that draws the click is not necessarily a credit to the entire page. It could just be a sign that Google's snippet team is dong a good job!

And if you're wondering about whether CTR data from Adwords can affect organic ranking, the answer is almost definitely no. Google officially and frequently underscores that the two areas - advertising and organic search - are kept quite separate. Many webmaster suspect otherwise, but IMO they're not using their best business sense when they think that. Google's long term business model would collapse if they started to muck about that way.