Is Google’s Algorithm Changing to Consider User Behavior?

Google realized early success in 1998 due to their focus on the relationships between websites to determine the rankings of results. Back then search engines ranked results based on the number of times the keyword being searched appeared on the page. By doing this Google was able to return more relevant results for users and the rest is history. 

Naturally search engine marketers pay close attention to any new algorithm change made by Google to develop new strategies. There is a interesting article today on <http://www.searchenginewatch.com">search engine watch</a> by Aaron Shear called <http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3631089">Google's Algorithm is Shifting</a>. In this article Aaron talks about Google switching to a more logical algorithm which is based more on user behavior. He thinks some of the factors that will be looked at are site performance, bounce rate and links. Links, as we all know, are the key factor now. Aaron emphasizes the importance of the diversity of the links and where they come from in this algorithm shift. He suggests blogs, social bookmarking sites, social chat engines and Facebook as areas to target. 

Who knows whether Aaron is guessing right?  To me it makes sense to look at site performance and bounce rate. This will bring Google's algorithm more in line with what professional SEO's do. Good SEO's don't stop at getting client's good rankings. They review site performance, bounce rates and conversions regularly. A lot of work is put into getting good rankings for a website to generate traffic and it is important to make sure that site performance and usability work to convert that traffic. It seems that it would also make good sense for Google to have their results produce conversions - idea being their results are giving users what they want. 

Google should care about site performance and bounce rates to ensure they continue to return relevant results to their users. High bounce rates indicate poor usability or irrelevant results to the user. Sites with high bounce rates reduce the relevancy of the result. Slow site performance in itself causes high bounce rates so this is another factor for Google to consider in their algorithm. If these two factors are becoming part of the algorithm I doubt that they weigh heavily. 

There are other search engines being developed using different strategies. Google needs to not only keep up with existing competition but continue to be innovative in producing results increasingly sophisticated users want. Users want to spend less time finding what they are looking for. Search engines need to make sure they do this.