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Google: ‘Bounce Rate’ NOT Included in Search Engine Algorithm
By Anna Johnson on January 17th, 2009Late in December, David Leonhardt wrote an insightful blog post in which he disputed claims that bounce rates do not form part of search engine algorithms.
I found his article rather convincing, and have always thought it logical that bounce rates might be taken into account by search engines.
Just one problem. Comments by Google’s search engine experts, Matt Cutts and Adam Lasnik, suggest that Google, at least, does NOT factor in bounce rates.
In response to Leonhardt’s article, Matt Cutts posted this comment on Sphinn:
“Without reading the article, I’ll just say that bounce rates would be not only spammable but noisy. A search industry person recently sent me some questions about how bounce rate is done at Google and I was like “Dude, I have no idea about any things like bounce rate. Why don’t you talk to this nice Google Analytics evangelist who knows about things like bounce rate?” I just don’t even run into people talking about this in my day-to-day life.”
Matt seems to be referring to a Q and A he did with Mike McDonald of Web Pro News. In that Q and A, Cutts’ referred Mike’s bounce rate related questions to Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik.
Meanwhile, in another article published by Web Pro News, Google Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik further indicated that Google does not consider bounce rates in ranking websites. Lasnik said:
“If you’re talking about bounce rates in the context of Google web search and webmaster-y issues, then we really don’t have specific guidance on bounces per se; rather, the key for webmasters is to make users happy so they find your site useful, bookmark your site, return to your site, recommend your site, link to your site, etc.
Pretty much everything we write algorithmically re: web search is designed to maximize user happiness, so anything webmasters do to increase that is likely to improve their site’s presence in Google.”
It may sound cryptic, but Google is never likely to be specific about what does or does not go into its algorithm.
So does mean that bounce rates do NOT matter for SEO purposes?
Not at all. Regardless of whether search engines do – or are even able to – factor bounce rates into their algorithms, they are still indicators of how relevant a visitor regards the content on a given page.
This, in turn, relates to ‘user happiness’ and, as Adam Lasnik says, Google’s algorithm is designed to maximize user happiness… which means matching search engine users with content that is RELEVANT to them.
Sure, a high bounce rate (based, for example, on Google Analytics’ definition of a ‘bounce’ as a one-page visit) may also reflect user happiness, but in many, if not most cases, users are happier when they find sites that keep them interested enough to visit more than one page.
Therefore, even if the search engines don’t directly use the bounce rate to rank your site… the bounce rate is still a strong indicator that YOU can use to measure how happy your visitors are with your content.
Sources: David Leonhardt, “Bounce Rate SEO Fallacies,” David Leonhardt’s SEO Marketing Express, December 23, 2008, Comments, Sphinn, December 25, 2008, Mike Sachoff, “What Google’s Matt Cutts Sees In 2009,” Web Pro News, December 7, 2008, Chris Crum, “Google Answers Bounce Rate Questions,” Web Pro News, January 4, 2008
January 17th, 2009 at 8:23 am
But some where on net only i have read that the bounce rate is taken into consideration in algorithms determination as well for the ranking too. so can any one make this clear to me?
January 17th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Great article However, bounce has to be considered in Adwords or your CPC goes up
January 17th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
GREAT point Wizard. Thanks for that.
January 19th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Hi Anna.
Good article. Just to be very careful with what I have said, I have not seen proof either way that bounces are factored into SE algorithms yet, although I suspect they are in a small way already. However, I am quite certain that as the clock ticks, they will increasingly be part of the algorithms.
I read Adam Lasnik’s quote to be contradictory to that of Matt Cutts. Matt seems to be trying to steer us away from thinking about bounces, without actually saying they don’t factor them in. Adam seems to be trying to steer us toward thinking about bounces, without actually saying they do factor them in.
Cryptic? You bet!
January 19th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Thanks for your added insights David. I love your last comment about Matt and Adam!
April 14th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
I see a contradiction between Matt Cutts’ comments and the Google Patent Application he co-wrote.
To wit:
“[0087] If a document is returned for a certain query and over time, or within a given time window, users spend either more or less time on average on the document given the same or similar query, then this may be used as an indication that the document is fresh or stale, respectively. For example, assume that the query “Riverview swimming schedule” returns a document with the title “Riverview Swimming Schedule.”
“Assume further that users used to spend 30 seconds accessing it, but now every user that selects the document only spends a few seconds accessing it. Search engine 125 may use this information to determine that the document is stale (i.e., contains an outdated swimming schedule) and score the document accordingly.”