CTR (SEO TRAFFIC) Manipulation - my Initial findings and theory - To the attention of new and old site owners.

SeoIsArt

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While our theories still in its infant stage, and currently I have some case studies on some sites running, I will try to share some of my initial findings on CTR manipulation (although I do not like this word) , let's say it is SEO traffic experiment. There are some phenomena which are being observed almost on all sites (especially new ones), so I will try to give my reasoning.

So question n1.

WHY RANKINGS FLUCTUATE DURING CTR MANIPULATION?

This thing is observed on majority of my and client sites. Especially if it is a new site or a PAGE which doesn't get significant amount of organic traffic (I.e our ctr traffic is >50% of organic traffic a site or a page gets at the moment). I have a site where main keywords fluctuate between 40 to 90 during the week.

So the fluctuation thing we can say is an indicator that something is going on. Cause for new sites , organic traffic per se (be it branded or keyword oriented traffic), is a big advantage and "luxury" , since site which is on position 69 , you wouldn't expect it getting organic traffic, cause it's far from those top positions. So this site is "on the radar" of Google, cause it has an extra "estimation criteria" , among the other sites in those positions.

New sites need to be estimated based on something. And there are 2 major points - backlinks and traffic (user behaviour). And while backlinks give "static" push, if they are good enough, traffic is a "dynamic" entity (cause google monitors user experience every day). So while you get CTR traffic, each set of traffic you get per following day, is an added "analysis meal" for search engine. So every day rankings change relating on the previous day's user behavior.

Why positions stabilize and in most cases improve after the end of CTR traffic?

So, let's say you performed 20-25 days of CTR campaign, Google now has a batch of data which it will analyze and draw user behavior trend and add bonuses for it (ranking improvement) , so "dust settles in" and fluctuations end.

But what is considered a good "user behaviour" ?

That depends on the type of site you running. It's a full myriad with xxxx's of factors and I suspect the Google s undisclosed 16737 ranking factors are dug deep in this user behavior thing.

"Scrolling" , "page views" this is just our conclusions that what a user "must" do for good user behaviour. But there is a big number of other parameters. So for example for local service sites the "conversion" factir would be clicking on that "call" button, for ecommerce sites it would be "add to cart" button.

Why CTR manipulation works best on E-commerce type of sites ?

I suspect cause of simplicity of the "intent" of these sites. What an average user is expected to do on a good e commerce site ? Just read the description and click that "add to cart" button, there is nothing else to do honestly on these type of sites. So we tell micro workers to click "add to cart" button per their session, so it adds as "conversion" in Google search eyes. Other type of sites are more complex to evaluate what is the best "user behaviour"...

Like I said , these are just initial thoughts and some things may add up in future case studies.
 
Good points, OP.
About 8 years ago (time flies), I did a test by taking a page of a site and used panda bot to test this CTR theory. That page went up from third page of google to page 1 but it took a few months. But then I stopped and that particular page got buried again.
So CTR manipulation works if you do it right.
And of course, backlinks work... just ignore google BS.
 
Good points, OP.
About 8 years ago (time flies), I did a test by taking a page of a site and used panda bot to test this CTR theory. That page went up from third page of google to page 1 but it took a few months. But then I stopped and that particular page got buried again.
So CTR manipulation works if you do it right.
And of course, backlinks work... just ignore google BS.
Yes, PandaBot was a good solution back then
 
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