Robin
07-30-2006, 12:38 PM
I have an interesting theory...
Have you seen the new personalised stuff on Google search results?
If you have logged into Google to use Sitemaps, Adwords, Adsense or any other Google product then, at the first result for a search term, they list the site you have most often visited for that term as "Search history results" (if you have visited any, that is).
Not only that, but also any sites you have been to recently, they tell you that next to each listing - ie "2 visits on the 27th" is what you might see.
Do you realise what this means? We thought that Google linked directly to our sites and couldn't track clicks. Maybe that's not true. How many thousands or even millions of people are logged into Google at one time?
Now, here's my theory.
I believe that now, those sites that get clicked on a lot actually rise higher in the listings. I have been trying this out for a few weeks clicking on certain of my sites a few times a day (not too many) using different IP addresses (although I don't know if that helps or not). These sites have been slowly rising and I've chased one up from position 29 to position 10 for a single search term.
I suspect Google now has a far better idea of popularity than Alexa and, I also suspect, one of the reasons they are now being so open about what they do on the sitemaps site may be that they now take clickthroughs from Google into account in the rankings.
Now I may be totally wrong, so I'd be interested in anyone else's thoughts - especially if they try the same technique and get similar results. But don't overdo it - knowing Google the software will probably penalise a site if they think it's being clicked fraudulently (that is, if my theory is correct anyway).
Afterthought: If they read your cache maybe you just have to visit the site a lot without going through the search? Just return to Google often for them to read the cache? I know it sounds nutty and big brotherush - but it seems possible.
Have you seen the new personalised stuff on Google search results?
If you have logged into Google to use Sitemaps, Adwords, Adsense or any other Google product then, at the first result for a search term, they list the site you have most often visited for that term as "Search history results" (if you have visited any, that is).
Not only that, but also any sites you have been to recently, they tell you that next to each listing - ie "2 visits on the 27th" is what you might see.
Do you realise what this means? We thought that Google linked directly to our sites and couldn't track clicks. Maybe that's not true. How many thousands or even millions of people are logged into Google at one time?
Now, here's my theory.
I believe that now, those sites that get clicked on a lot actually rise higher in the listings. I have been trying this out for a few weeks clicking on certain of my sites a few times a day (not too many) using different IP addresses (although I don't know if that helps or not). These sites have been slowly rising and I've chased one up from position 29 to position 10 for a single search term.
I suspect Google now has a far better idea of popularity than Alexa and, I also suspect, one of the reasons they are now being so open about what they do on the sitemaps site may be that they now take clickthroughs from Google into account in the rankings.
Now I may be totally wrong, so I'd be interested in anyone else's thoughts - especially if they try the same technique and get similar results. But don't overdo it - knowing Google the software will probably penalise a site if they think it's being clicked fraudulently (that is, if my theory is correct anyway).
Afterthought: If they read your cache maybe you just have to visit the site a lot without going through the search? Just return to Google often for them to read the cache? I know it sounds nutty and big brotherush - but it seems possible.