Does the traffic that a page get affects the page ranking?

[aliki_rigopoulou]

I am asking this as I would like to know if we can include this advice in our Search strategy. For instance, can we say for the keywords that has high business priority, but we are not currently rank above the fold we can boost the traffic and therefore the organic ranking by investing on these keywords on PPC.

[Xiano]

An interesting question...

Directly, no, Google state that PPC spend won't affect rankings. However, it's an interesting concept, if Google knows that a term you are using as a PPC keyword is driving traffic with a low bounce rate, that would indicate the page is relevant... therefore should it not rank more highly organically... who knows... Even if it has an impact, I wouldn't expect it to high up the list, so I wouldn't include those pages/terms purely for that reason.

That said, Google Ads can give you some useful insight into Google's opinion of your pages for specific keywords. If your Ad Rank is low for a page/keyword combination, then it is unlikely to rank well organically. You can look at "Landing Page Experience" and to a lesser extent "Expected CTR" to get an idea of which areas to target, improving those metrics on Ads could, based on the actions you would have likely had to have taken, improve your chances organically too.

[Xiano]

Answering your question title directly, ignoring your PPC extension. The traffic a page gets organically can affect rankings. People have carried out research in the past that demonstrates that CTR and bounce rate can affect future rankings. That said, Google may have adjusted that out now that people are aware as it could potentially be manipulated...

[Guest]

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[aliki_rigopoulou]

Thanks for your answer.

I thought traffic affects the page ranking. The more popular the page (more traffic), the higher will be in SERP. Therefore if we want to improve the ranking of a page to bring more traffic through PPC will have a positive impact on the Organic page ranking. Any thoughts on this?

[Xiano]

Not traffic on its own. CTR and low bounce have been demonstrated to have an impact, but that's traffic and behaviour from organic results, not PPC.

[aliki_rigopoulou]

Very helpful answer.

I recently had a training on Digital marketing and they mentioned that what affect your page ranking is:

1. Quality of the site: Load time, UX

2. Trustworthiness: Backlinks from trustworthy sites

3. Popularity: Site's traffic & Page visits

4. Authority: Combined measure of Trustworthiness and Popularity

Now it is clear to me that this is meant to page visits from organic traffic.

[NickSamuel]

There's some good discussion above and interesting ideas but ultimately none of us can know or confirm this 100%.

There is a general idea that links are only valuable if they drive traffic.

An extension of this idea comes from the notion that "drive traffic" means, the page or site in question receives organic visits.

The best way Google could guess this without "cheating" is through CTR and average position.

So if you have a link from a page which has zero visibility across keyword group or low rankings, it's fair to assume it gets no traffic.

If it has no traffic, Google probably deems it less valuable...

...and thus you could argue this means that "yes, the traffic a page gets affects the page ranking" indirectly.

It could also be seen as chicken/egg in terms of the page itself becoming "stronger" having received organic traffic.

/My rambling thoughts,

Nick

[NickSamuel]

Thumbs up, checking Ad Rank is for relevancy is a pretty cool idea - thanks for reminding me there's a whole other world out there besides SEO!