Does click-through-rate impact Google rankings? Is Google preparing to hit guest posting links again? Will we all be forced to migrate to HTTPS? This week’s forum discussions bring up important points. Join in!
Ad Click Bots Discovered In Game Apps In Google Play Store
According to researhers at Check Point, Malware “Judy” bypassed Google Bouncer, Play Stores proction system. The malware creates fraudulent ad clicks on the ads. The 50 apps in the Google Play Store with the malware, have been downloaded 36.5 million times.
Google warns about links in guest posts and sponsored posts
Google released a blog post warning webmasters about how they link from guest posts and sponsored content. In addition to cautioning about links, they also cautioned about low quality content written without sufficient subject matter expertise.
Google does state:
“Google does not discourage these types of articles in the cases when they inform users, educate another site’s audience or bring awareness to your cause or company. “
But they do say the presence of guest posting or sponsored post links may affect the whole site, not just the page the low-quality link were detected on:
“When Google detects that a website is publishing articles that contain spammy links, this may change Google’s perception of the quality of the site and could affect its ranking. “
Google Ad Hub (beta) Connects User Spending With Ads on its System
We wrote last week about Google Adhub (beta) announcement, which seeks to connect online clicks to offline purchases using credit card numbers. This discussion continues on a new thread, in Webmaster World this week, about how exactly Adhub may work.
Engine comments:
For consumers, there’s a fear of a great deal more tracking going on, and privacy advocates have already spoken out. However, Google has gone on to allay fears by stating that no user-level data is accessible to advertisers, and only impression data is accessible. The credit card is used to track spending, but there’s no clear indication as to how that works, and who’s sharing what data. That one may yet run and run from a privacy point of view.
Last week, we reported on a discussion on SEOChat about if CTR is a ranking factor. When we checked again this week, a lively and heated discussion was still underway.
Here is a nice SMX presentation by Gary Illyes at 2016 SMX West
I know Moz tested this and the results were temporary, but to me this suggests that CTR is a ranking factor. If CTR spikes (because Rand tells everyone to click a link), rankings might rise. But when that spike goes away a week later (when Rand is no longer doing the experiment), Google would pick up on that and drop the site back down in the rankings. I would hypothesize that a sustained boost in CTR (say, from writing a better title) would yield a sustained boost in rankings.
We have discussed the topic over at Jim and Ann show. Check it out: Bounce Rate, Long Click, Pogo-Sticking, Dwell Time, Click-Throug
I Don’t See Https At Target Homedepot Kmart And Other Important Domains
A cre8asiteforums member noted that some major ecommerce sites have not yet moved to SSL. Member hypothesize as to why this may be the case. EGOL comments:
In my mind, an info site doesn’t need to be https and the display pages on retail don’t have to be https… but Google is getting out a carrot and stick to force us into it.
Join the discussions above to contribute your thoughts