Yahoo Scientists: “Dwell Time” Is A Better Metric Than CTR

[SEOPTI]

Joining the drumbeat against clicks as a flawed metric for user engagement and interest, Yahoo Labs scientists have published a paper that finds time spent on content items — dwell time — is a better indicator of what people enjoy online.

[marketingland.com...]


I still wonder how they implemented this in their algo because they use Bing search.

[Wilburforce]

I still wonder how they implemented this in their algo because they use Bing search.

The article says (note the word "recommendation"): "When the researchers adjusted Yahoo recommendation algorithms...".

Presumably this refers to the "Also Try" section at the bottom of Yahoo's results page. It doesn't matter whose algorithm generates the results that Yahoo displays. Their own algorithm determines what goes in that section.

I don't personally think this counts as much of a revelation. I am sure other search-engines take account of dwell-time, and Google will probably have a much better idea than Yahoo of its relative significance.