poto

this is something I've suspected for a while... even though google analytics is a great free stats program, I've never fully trusted giving google that much info on my sites... I've heard rumors that they're taking bounce rate and pageviews into consideration among many other factors in their organic SERPs... which is another reason I'm considering moving away from using google analytics as I mentioned in this thread: Free Open Source Analytics Statistics with Heatmaps

it wouldn't surprise me if they were giving more weight to some AdWords buyers in the organic SERPs...

following is the article with screencap... notice in the screencap the top 3 organic listings are all AdWords buyers... hmmm...



A French blog presented a glimpse of Google's search rankings hitherto unseen by anybody outside the AdWords sales department. The big discovery: dollar amounts ascribed organic rankings, among other bits of information.

Zorgloob.com posted a screenshot acquired from an AdWords salesperson (whose job is likely on the line should Google discover the trail back) showing various dollar amounts posted beneath each organic result for "parachutisme" (parachuting), labeled "GG Score," the exact meaning of which is unknown.

The rest of the line tells whether the site owner is advertising, what "vertical" category they're in, and (most likely) how many pageviews they get.

Don't analyze the order too much. A post by the person who made the watermarked screenshot over at Google Blogoscoped reveals that the information lines have been rearranged to protect the privacy of the websites involved. It also makes it look doctored while making it difficult to assess what the dollar amounts actually mean.

Concerns that the image was faked are put out of mind, however, by Matt Cutts, who confirmed it in a number of places as how the AdWords sales team sees the search results. He also (tried) to put to bed fears that the dollar amounts had anything to do with the organic rankings:

The winning assumption then, is that the dollar amounts represent how much an advertiser would have spend for AdWords positioning, but it still relatively unclear. Valleywag posed a more sinister theory:

An interesting question, indeed. If you're a small website owner reading this and you feel that you have to buy some AdWords to get ahead in the SERPs, let us know about that in the comments section, and/or contact me directly at jmiller at webpronews.com.

It also raises the question of what exactly "PV" means and what the AdWords sales department uses it for. It stands to reason it might represent the number of pageviews a site gets. If so, how is Google getting that type of information? Are they getting it through Google Analytics? Does that perhaps raise some privacy issues?

source: AdWords Leak Raises Ranking Questions | WebProNews