More Traffic Leads To Higher Rankings

[morestar]

I can't for the life of me find the article(s) that proved this point. Nor can I at this time prove it but I'll give it a shot. More traffic leads to higher rankings. Can someone prove this wrong or right?

More traffic (from whatever sources) can lead to:

1. more user engagement
2. more sharing
3. more linking
4. lower bounce rates (?)

All of the above (and more) are measurable metrics.

More traffic means there were more clicks from wherever, onto your website. Even if you're #9 in the search results, and users, for the next 3 months scroll down to click on your listing in the SERPs, search engines will eventually take note of this.

Can anyone tell me, that if your Facebook page is suddenly getting tons of play, new Likers and new links pointing to it, that your linked to website on that page won't see an increase in the SERPs?

As Duane Forrester said in his recent article 8 Social and SEO myths reviewed, regarding social media,

This helps build a sense of community around your product, service or brand, and also helps cement your role as an authority...Social is an important part of the mix, but alone, it won't guarantee success in the SERPs.

So alone it won't guarantee success in the SERPs, so we can assume that combined with other factors it will.

What are the other factors? I think one of them is closely related to the increase in traffic from your website from other sources and from the number of clicks on your website in the SERPs.

I know there are quite a few arguable points in this post, that's fine, but like I said, I can't remember nor find where I read up on this. if someone can contribute or take away from these ideas, please do.

[PhilipDunn]

When I first entered the SEO field, I did read this (somewhere) and believed it. Since then, I have read things to the contrary and personally abandoned the belief. Optimizing new sites that have little traffic and having them land at the top of the results seems to oppose the possibility that traffic and ranking are related.

[chrisJumbo]

Everything about ranking is conjecture and there are always personal experiences that can debunk it either way. A SE can only track some of that info if the webmaster is using a tool (Google Analytics) that would feed them that info. The only real info that could be tracked reliably is CTR.

Higher Traffic won't necessarily mean more linking, more sharing, more engagement, etc. That would depend on the type of traffic.

[ChillingBreeze]

I believe that if you have got great real traffic on a website (from anywhere social r blah blah), you never have to build links and yet gain rankings over time. Those are what we call natural links, shares and authority.

[LD]

I believe that if you have got great real traffic on a website (from anywhere social r blah blah), you never have to build links and yet gain rankings over time. Those are what we call natural links, shares and authority.

You would then have to hope any "natural" links you might receive this way would be of the highest authority to increase PR and positioning. High rankings are rarely realized without efforts put forth in achieving a strong link profile. Unless, of course, one is in an extremely focused niche with little or no competition.

[ChillingBreeze]

Agreed.. and I replied above that I believe. It's not an easy game to have that kinda traffic without rankings really... until and unless you've something ultimate to go viral. And not every niche can have equally viral content approach.

I personally do a lot of SEO for own sites and clients to get rankings and traffic. Natural links are NOT easier to get and they end up making the most pricey ones.

You would then have to hope any "natural" links you might receive this way would be of the highest authority to increase PR and positioning. High rankings are rarely realized without efforts put forth in achieving a strong link profile. Unless, of course, one is in an extremely focused niche with little or no competition.

[morestar]

When I first entered the SEO field, I did read this (somewhere) and believed it.

I know, I read this recently though, less than 4 or 5 months ago, at SearchEngineLand quite possibly. Someone's going to come in with the info eventually...it was an article if I remember right. It had to do with a ranking metric of sorts. If you're receiving more traffic outside of the search engines and the traffic can be gauged, your rankings increased as a result of this.

[deepsand]

If you're receiving more traffic outside of the search engines and the traffic can be gauged, your rankings increased as a result of this.

Traffic that is "outside of the search engine" is invisible to the SE.

Most importantly, SE traffic is highly vulnerable to being manipulated in the same manner in which Alexa Traffic Rank is, and is thus a wholly unreliable metric.

The only thing that measures relating to SE traffic are useful for are as confirming signals, i.e. those which serve to confirm the confidence level accorded other signals.

[morestar]

Traffic that is "outside of the search engine" is invisible to the SE.

Traffic coming from websites with Google Analytics coded into them can provide a metric, not to mention toolbars and logged in sessions, searches, shares and pluses. Traffic coming to my website from other sites are measured as referrers because of Google Analytics being coded into my site - for instance.

Most importantly, SE traffic is highly vulnerable to being manipulated in the same manner in which Alexa Traffic Rank is, and is thus a wholly unreliable metric.

But this is really debatable - I mean the results of course could be skewed but what other measurements are being used that we're unaware of? They have spam signals and we would think natural traffic signals too.

[deepsand]

Traffic coming from websites with Google Analytics coded into them can provide a metric, not to mention toolbars and logged in sessions, searches, shares and pluses. Traffic coming to my website from other sites are measured as referrers because of Google Analytics being coded into my site - for instance.

Google still knows but a fraction of the totality.

But this is really debatable - I mean the results of course could be skewed but what other measurements are being used that we're unaware of? They have spam signals and we would think natural traffic signals too.

That click volume is easily manipulated is debatable?

What constitutes a "natural" traffic signal?