Is site engagement a ranking factor?

It’s no secret that Chrome browser records a significant amount of user interaction data and sends quite a lot of it back to Google. It could be assumed that a significant amount of that data is used to help Google understand user profiles so that they can better target ads to them.

But there is also a possibility that the data is used for organic ranking purposes too. In fact, it’s probably highly likely that they do.

Following Google’s DOJ trial last year in the US, user engagement with the search results was highlighted as one of the main ranking factors. It would make complete sense that as well as interactions with the search results, interactions with web pages, and the elements of pages, would also be used for ranking purposes.

The DOJ is threatening to remove Chrome from Google’s control and this could severely disrupt the data flow used from Chrome for ranking purposes. It will be interesting to see how this progresses.

In the meantime, you can see your own website engagement metrics by typing chrome://site-engagement/ in your Chrome browser address bar.

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