The first from Edmond Lau, a former Google engineer: It's pretty clear that any reasonable search engine would use click data on its own results and feed it back into the rankings to improve the quality of search results. Rarely clicked results should drop to the bottom because they are less relevant, and frequently clicked results rise to the top. Building a feedback loop is a fairly obvious quality step forward for search and recommendation systems, and a smart search engine would integrate the data. The second from Marissa Mayer in 2007 explaining how Google used CTR to determine when to display a OneBox: We hold them to a very high click-through rate expectation and if they don't meet that click-through rate, OneBox is disabled on that particular request. We have an automated system that looks at click-through rates per OneBox presentation per query.
So it could be that news works great on Bush today, but it doesn't work very well on another term, eventually it's turned off image masking service due to lack of click-through rates. We allow it in a scalable way and do a really good job of building relevance. Also check out this amazing excerpt from an FTC document obtained by the WSJ: Also, click data (the website links a user actually clicks on) is important for evaluating the quality of the search results page. As former Google search quality chief Udi Manber said: Ranking itself is affected by click data. If we find out that for a particular query, hypothetically, 80% of people click on result 2 and only 10% click on result 1, after a while we understand that result 2 is probably the one that people want.
So we will change it. Testimonials from Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt confirm that click data is important for many purposes, including, more importantly, providing feedback on whether Google's search algorithms offer its users high quality results. Advertising Continue reading below Why Google's Organic CTR Matters If you have great positions in the SERPs, great. But even a high ranking does not guarantee visits to your site. What matters is how many people click on your listing (and don't immediately bounce). You want to attract more visitors who are likely to stay and convert. Back in 2009, Google's spam team leader at the time, Matt Cutts, was asked about the importance of maximizing your organic CTR. Here is a key quote that says it all: It doesn't matter how often you show up. How often you get clicked on and how often you.