Google watchin Analytics for Ranking?

[ScottFicek]

I know that backlinks, content, age of site, keyword density, etc are the real driver of rankings.

Has anyone heard of or considered the following about Google (if this is a stupid question, just tell me):

1. Google tracks searches for keywords
2. They also track how many clicks a particular entry in their search results gets.
3. If a user comes to your site directly (via bookmark or off-line marketing) theoretically Google should not know about it.
4. Do you believe they use the data gathered via Google Analytics (which gives them on-site data) to adjust your Google placement to fill the gap created by direct visitors (as I mentioned in #3)?

[SCP]

Scott, G! is watching all this information. I thought that was the point of having Analytics. So you know how users are getting to your site, from where and when. What question are you looking to answer?

[ScottFicek]

My question was: If all my visitors are coming to my site directly (not using Google), does Google know about it. If they do, does the traffic boost my rankings as Google thinks "gosh, this must be good content as it is getting a lot of visitors".

In other words, is Analytics giving Google "inside" information to my site that it was otherwise not have. I am not asking that from a paranoid stance, but more that I hope it does.

Make sense?

[SCP]

Ah, OK.

My question was: If all my visitors are coming to my site directly (not using Google), does Google know about it.

Yes, G! does know about it, your Analytics code tracks it.

If they do, does the traffic boost my rankings as Google thinks "gosh, this must be good content as it is getting a lot of visitors".

I dont know if G! would give your site extra weight based on direct traffic. My guess is that it would not. G! is all about people finding your site based on some set of KWs. Once they find it, they directly visit it from a bookmark or typing the URL in.

[Discover Davis Homes]

G tracks direct traffic - it is one of the categories in analytics - if you have a nice percentage of people hitting your site directly - I don't think it is going to be held against you - analytics will still be tracking how long they were on the site - how many pages - where they are located, etc. Just not sure it would help you rank for a specific keyword.

[ScottFicek]

Thanks guys-
I hadn't read it anywhere that Google did care about direct traffic, but I recently started a new site and then had huge direct traffic, despite low search volume. I was hoping maybe the direct traffic would show credibility.

[SCP]

One thing you can do is apply filters to your Analytics. You can set these filters to do things like block traffic from a certain IP or Domain. I block my home PC IP address, and work IP address.

I was showing a lot of direct hits when I first launched and couldn't figure out why. Turns out it was my wife and I hitting the site a lot

[amidcars12]

hey scott,

Everyone out here knows this if he knows what is Google analytics. Google even had what and how to calculate the CPC rates(it depend upon many factors like keyword quality, hw many time it is searched, they also take into consideration whether a website is a free giver or a money takes for their services.)

Google has every possible thing which we can't even think about. They are genious of this field and that is why they have what one cannot have in 8 years of time..