SEO and bounce rate, and escort girls

terra_ferma

(bet you didn't think you'd see these words in the same sentence...;))

I was wondering if anyone knows (or can point me to specific information) about the effect of bounce rate on SEO.

I'm very lucky that hits to one of my websites have increased 10-fold in the last month or so.
Less lucky that they all come from people looking for a new escort website that has a very similar name to mine (I know because of the geographical location... people looking for some good local all-american fun in a specific area of the States...).

Obviously as my boring pictures of goods for sales are not as interesting as the glamorous girls on the other site... the bounce rate from them is 99.99% (the odd soul gets a bit confused and clicks on a link or two before giving up...).

I now have an 87% bounce rate, going up as that site is becoming more and more popular
(there is no malice or intent, it's just that it's a very similar name, easy to get wrong - and they were not there when I started my website, they just appeared from nowhere - pity I can't take advantage of this traffic in any way...)

Does anyone know if my website is likely to be demoted on Google, or if there is anything I can do about it?

kernewek

Well it won't do any good, but whether it does harm remains to be seen. Bounce rate is one of hundreds of factors that affect ranking. The think you really want to concentrate on is inbound links. Warning though, this is absolutely soul destroying. However, make sure inbound links are relevant and don't, whatever you do, pay one of these companies who reckon they can do it for you as it is more likely to have a negative effect. Try finding related businesses you can share links with or post links on forums (be careful not to annoy people with that one though). Paid for links are a waste of time and are ignored.

terra_ferma

thank you all for your reply, it's reassuring to hear that the damage is not as bad as I though, if any
in terms of links, I'm working on it, but I keep reading that you have to be careful with links.
I've seen a lot of reputable sources advising NOT to use paid links, but I would be interested in any equally good sources recommending their use, you never know.

kernewek

Jackofalltradez wrote: »

Ok, i am going to disect this dribble as it really does get me irate all these unfounded experts.



Makes no sense at all.



Sorry, bounce rate in general isn't a ranking factor. Where it may become a ranking factor is if someone hits the back button , gets returned to the results pages and clicks "block this website from results" but even then they may only be testing this as it is open to abuse, and it may just be to improve that users experience with no detriment to the site in rankings.



Sorry, the truth is related or non related - they are all good.



..........



Paid links are certainly not a waste of time, and they are certainly not ignored by google.

Paid links are a waste of time in terms of organic ranking. Not sure what sort of expert you think you are but non-related links are definitely not necessarily good as can be seen as spamming.
It really annoys me all these IT boffins who can do nothing but criticise but offer no advice of any sort.

AliceJenkins

Paid links are very effective, bounce rate wont be an issue.

AliceJenkins

kernewek wrote: »

Paid links are a waste of time in terms of organic ranking. Not sure what sort of expert you think you are but non-related links are definitely not necessarily good as can be seen as spamming.
It really annoys me all these IT boffins who can do nothing but criticise but offer no advice of any sort.

Name one insurance company not buying links.

kernewek

AliceJenkins wrote: »

Paid links are very effective, bounce rate wont be an issue.

I'm not saying paid links aren't effective, I use them myself as they can generate lots of traffic. But they don't make the slightest bit of difference to organic ranking.

kernewek

The following is a statement from Google:

Paid links


Google and most other search engines use links to determine reputation. A site's ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to it. Link-based analysis is an extremely useful way of measuring a site's value, and has greatly improved the quality of web search. Both the quantity and, more importantly, the quality of links count towards this rating.
However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.
Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such as excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank. If you see a site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank, let us know. We'll use your information to improve our algorithmic detection of such links.


So paid links might help if you violate Google's policies. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me!

terra_ferma

Jackofalltradez wrote: »

A good way to look at it is you have a website and you want to market that website so you go around buying advertising. It just so happens this advertising is also very beneficial to organic ranking in search engine (what a coincidence). You as a website owner don't care theoretically whether or not the links you get are do follow or no follow, (do follow being the ones that give full benefit).

Every listing on yell.com passes do follow link juice.

They are a national company selling links. (Although the seo benefit from yell isn't worth the money spent with yell.)

Do all the websites with links from yell get banned

If you are a local accountant (you seem to be) your seo will be easy anyway, just a few selective links and you'd be top. Onsite seo plays a bigger role for local seo to be fair. The crucial onsite being your title, header tags and internal linking.

Hopefully i haven't made your head explode.

:money:

An accountant? what a strange assumption to make, I'm not.

You probably don't mean to sound patronising, but as someone who has been designing and running two e-commerce websites (among other things) without any external help whatsoever, I think it would take a bit more than some basic seo jargon to get my head spinning...

kernewek

Jackofalltradez wrote: »

What do you mean might help. Come back when you actually have a clue about seo.

Ok will do. So far you have advised using irrelevant links and paid links that violate Google's policies in order to promote organic ranking. Only wish I had an SEO guy like you working for me!