Links Clicked Using Google Chrome are Valued Higher

[bhartzer]

At the recent Kahenacon conference held recently, an ex-Google employee claimed that Google is apparently assigning more value to links that send traffic. And Google measures all of this using the Google Chrome web browser, not Google Analytics.

Google Chrome sends a lot of data over to Google when you use it, so it makes sense that Google will give more weight to a link that they know is being clicked more often.

I am actually not surprised by this, I have suspected that Google has been using click data for a while now.

This is the first time we have (potential) confirmation that they're giving more weight to links in this way.

[SteveGerencser]

That would almost be plauseable if Chrome had more than 30% of the market share. Right now at best, they "might" track 1/3 of all traffic that way. Add to this, that level of tracking would be a violation of most privacy laws in the EU, I can't see this happening.

[williamc]

I can just see the ads on fiverr tomorrow re: this.....

[deepsand]

Setting aside the issue of click fraud, mention of data being acquired via the Chrome browser, but not by way of either the Toolbar or the interstitial SERP links makes no sense.

[Tubby]

Google is apparently assigning more value to links that send traffic. And Google measures all of this using the Google Chrome web browser,

The only thing I can think of that sounds sillier than this. . . would be telling people about it.

[claybutler]

It's even worse than you think. Not only is Google tracking clicks through Chrome but everyone who uses Chrome is also sending their webcam data over. Google is using things like LTM (laugh time metrics) to determine which YouTube videos people find funniest and then giving those videos a boost in the SERPs when someone is searching for a funny video. I have a few guys at Fiverr right now laughing at my videos and I've jumped three spots in just two days. I'm also working on my porn site and having some guys from Fiverr boost the rankings of some of my higher quality videos (content is king!). Matt Cutts won't officially acknowledge "wank time" but I've seen it affect my rankings. I'm also using negative SEO to hurt my competitors sites by paying impotent men to hopelessly masturbate to their more popular videos.

[deepsand]

ROTFLMAO.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to claybutler again.

IMO, said ex-Google employee is like the blind man who, having grasped its tail, declared an elephant to be like a rope.

[colin4255]

LMAO - and no doubt the whole thing is presided over by the Google fairies.

[Clint1]

Anyone know what happened to this post that is in the current WPW newsletter??

"Google Discussion Forum
Request to Google

So I was severely affected by Google even though I ONLY use white hat SEO methods.

What is your take on asking Google to review the sites. Are people doing this?

Some people are saying don't, it may make things worse.

Read Replies
Posted by: bhartzer"

The links go to this page!

[Clint1]

I am actually not surprised by this, I have suspected that Google has been using click data for a while now.

This is the first time we have (potential) confirmation that they're giving more weight to links in this way.

(While they may or may not give more credence to Chrome), I believe they are doing this (tracking) with all browsers. Hasn't anyone noticed that some time back (since day one at G), all links in the results were raw links, the actual pages' URL's. Several months back, maybe even a year or so, all links changed to the G tracking prefix (with other data strings), example:

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://ResultPagesURLsHere.com/&sa=U&ei=ReallyLongUniqueCharacterStringHere

Whereas previously the result URL would only be http://ResultPagesURLsHere.com/

You know they're tracking clicks with that other data.

(#6 ^ Good one Clay, that's a keeper. )