Does number of visitors help ranking

[member22]

Hello,

I am just wondering if having a lot of visitors on your website everyday helps as far a ranking on google even though you have 0 clue on how to rank a site...

I am saying thtat because i noticed that some websites rank on very competitive keywords and have 0 clue on howe to rank ( the clue I am talking about is 0 external links )

Thanks,

[Brett_Tabke]

Yes, there has been speculation at Google is using analytics data from GA to influence serps.

[Simsi]

Yes, there has been speculation at Google is using analytics data from GA to influence serps.

Presumably this means that lower traffic might work against you? I wonder if this explains a situation I had last year.

I created a PPC campaign for a site with low traffic and average T10-T20 rankings in Jan 2009, added GA to monitor PPC conversions etc and within a month or so, organic traffic and rankings had tanked. Nothing else had changed on the site and I know that a PPC campaign shouldn't affect rankings in itself.

I can see the logic in checking visitors, but this might make me careful about adding GA to existing sites. I'd hope that if Google are using GA stats, it would focus as much on retention and visit lengths, which strike me as truer indications of an effective website.

[Brett_Tabke]

>Presumably this means that lower traffic might work against you?

I would be more interested in "quality" than quantity. Things like page-views-per-user and page-views-leading-to-https connections.

[member22]

Thank you for the answers and I have noticed exactly the same thing with a famous website they rank 2nd on a very competitive keyword and have none of the ranking algorithm to rank just thousand of visitors a day because they have a name and that gives them good ranking.

It means that if you are nobody to become someone you are going to have to work thousand of hours to rank where they rank... ( it might take a year , 2 years, 3 years etc... ) it is the beauty of google ;)

I just hope google will take into consideration the number of visitors but also how long they stay etc... otherwise they really don't give much of a chance to small businesses...

[hasimsg]

I have a site which already 7+ years. Back then, when I create that static pages site, I blindly followed only one guidance which is: make sure to define meta (title,desc,keyword) for each page properly.

As of now, that site still has lots of visitors, decent links from wikipedia, and other sites.

That legacy site still survive all that PR up and down, google SE update, and other bad things. All without any so call SEO manipulation.

Based on that case above, I also believe that number of visitors (regularly from related topics) also has some weight for your page position in serp.

[buckworks]

It's a certainty that more traffic can help your SEO indirectly. The more traffic you have, the better your chance of getting a visitor now and then who likes your site well enough to link to it. If your site is good, the link juice can add up nicely over time.

More traffic --> more organic links --> SEO progress

to become someone you are going to have to work thousand of hours

Yes. The above process does not happen by magic.

Promoting a site is like flying a plane. The beginning is usually the most energy-intensive part of the trip; it takes a lot of energy to get the plane up into the air. But once it reaches cruising altitude it can stay airborne with less energy.

[Simsi]

More traffic --> more organic links --> SEO progress

That's one way - but content that keeps the traffic occupied on your site can be equally as good even if it doesn't attract links in my experience.

IMO the "time factor" is the real driver of the "content is king" mantra and a factor that can easily get overlooked.

[hasimsg]

I think all of us miss the "undocumented" links or referrer such as:
- from free, private, groups, or corporate email
- from instant messanger or relay chat (incl. chat in Facebook)

Could it be that all those voters above contribute to your ranking? Assume that you have some slaves from SE (analytics, adsense, etc) ready to record them. ;)

[claus]

speculation at Google is using analytics data from GA

Not all sites run GA. However, users with Firefox or the Google Toolbar visit all kinds of sites - even those without GA ;-)

[macas]

You must have in your mind that content is major thing which gives you power to have page rank . If you put on your page good description and keywords and made good seo on page , you can count on good page rank and without big amount of visits .
Yes, there second thing : time , time waiting to get page rank . You can do there improvements too : Pinging your pages , making good backlinks for pages.

Visits are just reflect of how much is your content "popular" or searched on SE.

But you know, page rank is now more important like was used to be .