On-Site Visitor Stats and SEO

[PTC]

I don't know a lot about google's technical ability to track this stuff, obviously if you use google analytics this info is available to them, but I recall many debates over wheres analytics data is is used for SERP rankings.

I believe I proposed this idea maybe 5 months ago here, I got the impression I might be right by reading between the lines in Mr Martinez's comments. The idea was that time-on-site and # of pages viewed by visitors DOES have an effect on SEO. I believe I saw a de-indexing of several indexed pages that had reduced traffic during the summer season (for a winter ski website, just after caffeine and may-day updates). Logically; it would seem to make sense to include this kind of data in your SERPS ranking algorithms, high time on site and # of pages/visitor seem to be indicators of a quality website.

I do know this from a Matt Cutts comment - If you click from one page to another through a link, google will see this. In my own words... google will know where you came from, where you went, and what you did when you got there. This comment really makes me wonder how much data google is able to obtain with regards to visitor behavior.

I can also attest that I have several pages, equally linked to internally and equally placed with the same internal links and presence throughout one of my sites. The pages with great traffic figures are pr2... similar pages with lower traffic and on-site CTR are PR0 and in some cases even de-indexed.

Please share your thoughts, arguments and view points.

[Lech_Walesa]

thats is true especially with GA code on site, but this is minor factor otherwise all site owners would buy fake traffic and don't bother for links

[PTC]

fake traffic and don't bother for links

A good point, but if you are referring to spam or low quality traffic, I would expect these visitors to have a low time-on-site and low number of pages viewed IMHO.

If you mean fake traffic as in bots crawling the site or similar, Im not sure if this could be deciphered by google on the fly or not. This could certainly be a method worth testing. You would just need a bot designed to travel to your site through one of a few selected methods and then cruise your site for a few minutes to mimic a real visitor's behavior.

[Strider1973]

Not everyone has GA installed, and I doubt that Google would combine data from GA accounts, as this will slow down their search engine.

But what would make sense for Google is to use other data that they can use from the users: They know when a person clicks on a link in the serps. So they know also the time between two clicks in the serps. So they can indirectly measure the time spent on a site. And this would be a quality measure they could use for ranking purposes.

[Michael Martinez]

Google claims there is no connection between Analytics and the Web Search service. In fact, Matt Cutts recently did a video explaining why Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools data don't match each other (Why Don't Google Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics Match Up?) and he stated explicitly that these are two separate groups within Google who each have their own code bases.

The Webmaster Tools team works with Google's server logs, which are updated from the search engine. Google does track your clicks through their query results and any indexing or filtering or ranking considerations made on the basis of user behavior appear to be made based only on what they record from their search service.

I have read some of Google's research about how they analyze server logs. There was no mention of comparing data to Google Analytics, but my research into their research is hardly exhaustive.

Nonetheless, I have found no reason to doubt what Google says about what it does or does not use.

[Strider1973]

Web Site Statistics - what do your visitors do online? How Long are they online and why are they there, did they come from a search engine or a referred site? Site statistics will give you all the answers.

How many times is a unique web visitor on your site the first time, once per day, several times per day, twice per day, twice a week and once per week? Web site traffic statistics are important tools leading to proper visitor analysis on your web site.
Web Site Traffic Statistics

When do visitors return Why & how often?

Web Site Traffic Statistics - What are the habits of your online visitors?
Visitor Analysis

Tracking visitor habits. Browsers, length of their stay, paths of visitors.

Tracking visitor habits & Search engine tracking. Where did your visitors come from? Which search engines did unique visitor hits or returning unique web visitor impressions come from, what path did they take on your site? Which browser are they using, which operating system do your visitors use, is it Windows XP, Windows 98? Do your visitors use larger monitors on average or do your online visitors use smaller monitors? How long are your visitors on your page per visit, exactly? What time of the day did they come, and what is their unique IP address? Discover the potentials with visitor analysis.

Ban this guy and disable signature for people with less than 25 posts.