Who has tried paying real people for branded traffic searches?

"Google filed a patent, "Ranking Search Results," describing re-ranking pages partly by counting "reference queries" — branded and navigational searches — which it treats as implied links, a popularity signal that's harder to manipulate than backlinks. The 2023 antitrust testimony and the 2024 API documentation leak both pointed to click and navigation data (Navboost, Chrome-derived signals) feeding into ranking, and to site-level authority scores that brand strength plausibly feeds. And branded queries are a huge share of search — an Ahrefs study of ~150 million US keywords found branded queries make up about 46% of search volume".

It seems like branded searches carry some ranking signal, especially now they're visible in Google Search Console.

Has anyone tried a micro-worker search campaign for that brand? I imagine you'll have to include clicks and dwell time, etc.

Thanks

I've not tried it, but I'm sure it's one of the ranking factors.

Google focuses more on user behavior than before.

I tried that a long time ago, but for CTR manipulation. As you know, most of the traffic comes from third-world countries, and I didn’t want that to affect my website, which targets tier-one countries. I implemented a countdown, and once it finished, it showed a random, original code to each worker. The code could only be seen after they visited every page and spent a certain amount of time on the website. That way, I could make sure they stayed on the site and completed all the requirements.

jamie3000 said:

Has anyone tried a micro-worker search campaign for that brand?

Click to expand...

This sounds both interesting and exciting. Worth doing a case study on.
It won't be cheap though, you have to pay more for microworkers from first world countries and you'll need a sizeable volume of searches to see any positive outcome.