SEARCH MARKETING
Dwell Time: Is It A Ranking Factor? And If So, Should You Care?
Google uses 200+ ranking factors and dwell time is one of those factors. Or is it?
The truth is, dwell time is a confusing and misunderstood metric.
What is dwell time? How is it measured? Is it REALLY a ranking factor? And if so, how the heck do you optimize for it?
Get all the answers including experts’ opinion of the biggest names in the SEO industry to get their take on the matter.
SIDENOTE. This post was originally published in 2016. But we gave it a MAJOR update in January 2018 to make it up-to-date. So don’t be surprised to see some old comments. They contribute to the topic and we could not just delete them.
What is Dwell Time?
Dwell time is the amount of time that passes between the moment you click a search result and subsequently return back to the SERPs.
Example:
Let’s assume I do a search for “white hat link building.”
Source: ahrefs
I click the first result and spend a few minutes (5 minutes 14 seconds, to be exact) reading the content.
Because I have a somewhat unhealthy obsession with learning, I decide I want to know even more. So, I head back to the SERPs (via the “back” button in my browser) to look for more content.
SIDENOTE. This back and forth process between the SERPs and search results is also known as pogo-sticking.
My dwell time on that page, then, was roughly 5 minutes 14 seconds.
But why does this matter for SEO?
Read more here.
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