Good morning, search marketers, how's your CTR these days?
Last week, we asked for your thoughts on Google's not-so-crystal-clear statement that it doesn't use organic CTR data in its ranking algorithm. Does it even matter? Here's what some had to say (bolding ours):
"I think this one falls into the 'correlation isn't causation' category. There are so many factors that can affect CTR that have nothing to do with your site, and these same factors most likely influence rank for a given query as well," wrote Mike Tilma, e-commerce manager at TheLubricantStore.com.
"So does it matter? No, not really. If it does affect rank, then you're already covered by creating a better experience for the customer (as measured by an increase in CTR). The only time it might matter is if a bad actor tries to artificially increase their CTR, which Google is pretty good at catching, making it a non-issue," concluded Tilma.
"I think logically it makes sense that Google would use CTR as a signal. I think they have been using it for over a decade now; along with time on page and time on site," wrote Michael Bertini, SEO strategist at iQuanti. "Intuitively, CTR data can better configure search results. If Google sees that certain web pages in rank position 1 have a lower CTR for a specific search phrase than the page ranking in position 4, it would make sense to replace the top-ranked page with the latter one."
Garit Boothe, SEO manager at Nav Inc., cited experiments by others such as Rand Fishkin and his own success in getting a new piece of content to rank in top positions for competitive head terms without any link building efforts as evidence that "there's no way that Google isn't using interaction signals to determine rankings." He wrote, "Technical SEO, domain authority and links get you to page 1, but awesome content gets you to position 1."
"Whether or not CTR is deemed to be a 'ranking factor' depends on your definition of what a ranking factor is," said Will Nye, head of SEO at Builtvisible. "Google are clearly defining this as something that has a direct impact upon the ranking of a URL for a specific query, whereas others have a broader definition. If CTR data is used to evaluate query intent, then I'd argue that it does influence rankings, but in an indirect way.
"CTR may not impact upon the position of an individual URL – in the sense that high/low CTR for a query may not cause a ranking increase/decrease – but if the intent for a subset of queries is refined based off of this data, then it could effectively cause this to happen, due to the URL being seen as more or less relevant than before. It is therefore still worthwhile looking at CTR, in addition to other metrics, when assessing content to ensure that users are being satisfied; but it is not worth fixating on."
Thanks to those who shared your thoughts with us.Lots more below, including a Pro Tip for Amazon advertisers on how to think about impression share in context of your competition.
Ginny Marvin
Editor-In-Chief
Quick links to stories mentioned above:
+ Google's CTR answer just what you'd expect, and this is why SEOs go bananas
