I can’t implement your suggestions for cutting the bounce rate. Think about that and you’ll understand why.

The point on addition of links was that I wasn’t getting new links and everything else was constant except for the search traffic and rank.

My theory is that when I got a new link, it ranked higher. After the recency of the link wore off, it dropped back due to the bounce rates remaining as they had been.

I do have the keywords on the page and the competition hasn’t really changed.

As to studying, client work etc … yeah, small hindrances, huh ?

Love it when you come by Branko, so please keep sharing your insightful comments!

There’s a problem with adding the content you’re suggesting, in that it would change the site’s content rating.

The point on addition of links was that I wasn’t getting new links and everything else was constant except for the search traffic and rank.

My theory is that when I got a new link, it ranked higher. After the recency of the link wore off, it dropped back due to the bounce rates remaining as they had been.

I do have the keywords on the page and the competition hasn’t really changed.

As to studying, client work etc … yeah, small hindrances, huh ?

Love it when you come by Branko, so please keep sharing your insightful comments!

Trying to cut the bounce rate by adding video/pics would require me to make what is a general-rated site x-rated.

The point on addition of links was that I wasn’t getting new links and everything else was constant except for the search traffic and rank.

My theory is that when I got a new link, it ranked higher. After the recency of the link wore off, it dropped back due to the bounce rates remaining as they had been.

I do have the keywords on the page and the competition hasn’t really changed.

As to studying, client work etc … yeah, small hindrances, huh ?

Love it when you come by Branko, so please keep sharing your insightful comments!

Trying to cut the bounce rate by adding video/pics would likely mean adding content not meant for kids, since this is adult traffic. Not happening, since porn is addictive and I’m not looking to make any money at other people’s expense. Yesterday I chose not to target a very lucrative niche that I could rank for in a few months and make up to 60K / year because it was promoting a product that is unethical.

The point on addition of links was that I wasn’t getting new links and everything else was constant except for the search traffic and rank.

My theory is that when I got a new link, it ranked higher. After the recency of the link wore off, it dropped back due to the bounce rates remaining as they had been.

I do have the keywords on the page and the competition hasn’t really changed.

As to studying, client work etc … yeah, small hindrances, huh ?

Love it when you come by Branko, so please keep sharing your insightful comments!

Trying to cut the bounce rate by adding video/pics would likely mean adding porn, since this adult traffic. Not happening, since porn is addictive and I’m not looking to make any money at other people’s expense. Yesterday I chose not to target a very lucrative niche that I could rank for in a few months and make up to 60K / year because it was promoting a product that is unethical.

The point on addition of links was that I wasn’t getting new links and everything else was constant except for the search traffic and rank.

My theory is that when I got a new link, it ranked higher. After the recency of the link wore off, it dropped back due to the bounce rates remaining as they had been.

I do have the keywords on the page and the competition hasn’t really changed.

As to studying, client work etc … yeah, small hindrances, huh ?

Love it when you come by Branko, so please keep sharing your insightful comments!

Again, the phenomenon he is seeing can be caused by several other things (lets say a paid link penalty with anchor text containing a high-traffic-high-bounce-rate keyword, removal of link and removal of penalty). There needs to be an intentional manipulation of bounce rate up and down accompanied by ranking changes in order to support this assumption

It could be Google got the relevance better on the results – so they stopped ranking this site for keywords that were not appropriate. That would mean probably less but more targeted traffic.

It’s an interesting topic that I’d love to learn more about. The trouble is that most of what we will have access to is anecdotal evidence and nothing empirical…

How about you try to decrease the bounce rate? Embed a video, try to add images with sentences that include the keywords that you are ranking for (so you don’t add them to the text)…

According to the information you are giving here it looks as it is just a coincidence. There are too many factors that could influence the changes in rankings (addition of links, fact that you don’t have the keywords on the page)

You need to somehow connect between the change in rankings and the change in bounce rates and to show that you can increase and decrease the rankings by only changing the bounce rate. It seems like you have an experimental system almost setup for that, it would be pity not to.

That is of course if you are interested in testing it out at all and don’t have better things to do, like studying, client work, etc.

It hasn’t necessarily been reliant simply on their access to user behavior data from Google Analytics, the Google toolbar or other direct sources either – the simple use of a cookie to track whether the user comes directly back to Google to search again or try another result is telling in itself.

The most recent evidence of this I read about was posted over at SEOBlackhat.com: http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/21/bounce-rate-seo/