I've seen a lot of different theories about what helps your page rank better. I've also read a lot of articles about improving your page ranking, which led to a discussion with a colleague regarding the amount of time a visitor spends on your site. I'd like to further this discussion by posing this question, does the amount of time a person spends on your site actually help improve your page ranking?
jeffreysloe: does the amount of time a person spends on your site actually help improve your page ranking? That's an interesting question and I can't say whether that's true or not. But I can say that the amount of time a person spends on your site is an indication of other factors, such as: - relevance of content to what they are searching for - copywriting strategies - web site layout and presentation - ease of use (navigation) - the overall visitor experience NOTE: The elements mentioned above can cut both ways. If people are not sticking around very long, it may suggest that you need to improve these areas. If people are hanging out at your site, it may be because these components have been optimized. Hermas
hi Jeffry, Time spent on website affects search engine ranks more than page rank. If the website is in the top position but if that website has more bounce then the search engine ranking drops. Where as in pagerank as we know quality back links run the show but there are 1000 more factors which determine the PR so it might be one of the factor in thousandds perhaps. Cheers
After a little bit of research and a general hunch I don't think that visitor's time spent on a page has anything to do with page rank. Getting solid backlinks is a key along with Hermas' insight. Once the visitor is there it's no longer a PR issue. The link which they arrived from is though
I agree with Norma that time spent on the site and page views most immediately affect the search engine rankings. As google only updates page rank every 3 months or so, its hard to tell what effect it really has there. With the hundreds or thousands factors that determine page rank I am sure it does play its role either directly or indirectly by influencing other factors that are used in the page rank calculations.
I agree that page ranking has to do with the amount of backlinks but SE rankings may be effective on the amount of time spent on your site. one copy writting clas said the average visitor spends 3 seconds on a site. So you have 3 seconds to draw them in further.
I do not think that time spent on a page has any effect on PR. IT might to a certain extent influence your SERPS positioning, but not necessarily the PR. Remember that PR usually relies on linking to high quality PR sites. Anyhow, you should try to keep the bounce rate low at all costs. It does not look good and it may not be good for your end results which is to have sale conversions.
To be honest it should be NO. I assume so. Visitor time will help in authoritating the value of a website and I have heard that Google uses it is ranking algorithm. But for PR, not sure and I assume it is NO.
Norma: Time spent on website affects search engine ranks more than page rank. If the website is in the top position but if that website has more bounce then the search engine ranking drops. Thanks Norma; I haven't heard that, but I'll do some more research on the subject. I have a few test sites that get a lot of traffic. However, the bounce rate is high, yet they are still in the top ten positions on Google. By the way, the page rank for those sites equals zero. Jeff
advertise: Remember that PR usually relies on linking to high quality PR sites. That's my understanding of the way PR works. Thanks! Jeff
I don't think that bounce rate has anything to do with page rank. PR is a term associated with SE where as boune rate is a term related to website's quality and popularity from the user's perspective. To increase your page rank, you probably need quality backlinks. Lots of backlinks.
I've heard both sides of the discussion. I'm afraid there's too much info on either side of the debate to ever know unless google is willing to spill the beans..... That said, I could see where length of time on a site may make a difference, but I'd have to believe that the algorithms would only measure this information to a point,e.g.after 5 minutes it receives top rating for that particular metric, regardless of how much longer the site is open....Considering, some sites are parked all day as home pages, others are left open overnight as people walk away without clearing the browser. These and other such activities could skew the results otherwise. Just a few idle thoughts- winlin
