undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • SEO Q&A
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • Case Studies
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • Case Studies

      Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Will Reduced Bounce Rate, Increased Pages/Session, Increased Session Duration-RESULT IN BETTER RANKING?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Will Reduced Bounce Rate, Increased Pages/Session, Increased Session Duration-RESULT IN BETTER RANKING?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
5
8
2.2k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • Kingalan1
    Kingalan1 last edited by Dec 28, 2018, 4:16 PM

    Our relaunched website has a much lower bounce rate (66% before, now 58%) increased pages per session (1.89 before, now 3.47) and increased session duration (1:33 before, now 3:47). The relaunch was December 20th.

    Should these improvements result in an improvement in Google rank? How about in MOZ authority?

    We have not significantly changed the content of the site but the UX has been greatly improved.

    Thanks,

    Alan

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
    • Kingalan1
      Kingalan1 @Jeff_Baker last edited by Jan 2, 2019, 7:44 AM Jan 2, 2019, 7:44 AM

      Hi Jeff:

      Happy to report that improved metrics are not caused by bots or any unusual spikes in traffic. So I think we are seeing a legitimate improvement. Last year we focused on UX improvements. Will focus on content and links this year in order to solidify our gains.

      Thanks for your input!!

      Alan

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • jasongmcmahon
        jasongmcmahon last edited by Jan 1, 2019, 9:52 PM Jan 1, 2019, 9:52 PM

        Hello Kingalan1,

        Looks like you're already improved your Google rankings! Have you checked your traffic sources in Google? To improve your site authority quicker, start a link building campaign.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • Jeff_Baker
          Jeff_Baker last edited by Jan 26, 2019, 8:51 PM Dec 31, 2018, 7:54 PM

          For starters, congratulations on the improved metrics you're experiencing! I would have to also agree with EGOL on this one, in that it will be important to observe how those numbers are pulled, because it's very easy to get false positives with small amounts of data after large changes.

          Some tips:

          • You may want to look into your numbers a little deeper, and isolate performance based on location and user type. Meaning: are your numbers being skewed by internal members of the organization? Your tech team is a notorious source of generating false numbers if their IPs are not filtered. An easy way to do this is to compare % new users before/after launch. If the % of new users is substantially down, you may want to drill down into location to see if there is anything fishy going on. Which brings me to #2...
          • Drill down into city to ensure that all of the traffic isn't coming from one place. You would be surprised at how much traffic is actually bots. If you see a disproportionate number of sessions coming from one city, take a look at the % of new users from that city. If it's in the single digits, you have a bot or developer, or spammer. I wrote a blog post on how to identify bots (and if they are creating false positives).

          **As for rankings...: **

          • Lots of controversy over this one, but I think more SEOs than not seem to agree that dwell time (time between leaving SERPs and visiting a site, then returning to SERPs) is an important factor for RankBrain.
          • Look up "pogosticking" and its relationship with bounce rate. This is also likely a RankBrain factor.

          In my opinion, if the numbers are true, in a very cursory observation, it seems that you have created a better experience for visitors. I would imagine that this **may **result in better rankings. At least, there is a better chance than not resulting in better rankings.

          Apologies, SEOs never seem to give clear-cut answers, and qualify every statement 🙂

          Jeff

          Kingalan1 1 Reply Last reply Jan 2, 2019, 7:44 AM Reply Quote 1
          • TakeshiYoung
            TakeshiYoung last edited by Dec 31, 2018, 3:36 AM Dec 31, 2018, 3:36 AM

            Lots of people speculate that website usability impacts search rank, but this hasn't been conclusively been proven. Improving your website experience is great for conversions and something you should definitely work to improve, but if you want to improve search ranking it's still important to focus on content & links.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • EGOL
              EGOL @Kingalan1 last edited by Dec 28, 2018, 8:19 PM Dec 28, 2018, 8:19 PM

              Hello Kingalan1,

              If you are getting a nice increase in the number of people getting in touch for this time of year then you have made impressive improvements in the function and visitor satisfaction of the site.  Nice work.

              I expect that you will see some kind of rankings increase.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Kingalan1
                Kingalan1 @EGOL last edited by Dec 28, 2018, 8:11 PM Dec 28, 2018, 8:11 PM

                Hi EGOL;

                Thanks for your input. I am receiving a dramatically increased number  customers inquiries from the redesigned site. Hopefully there is a reasonable chance that Google will reward us with improved rankings. But I guess time will tell. 
                THANKS, 
                Alan

                EGOL 1 Reply Last reply Dec 28, 2018, 8:19 PM Reply Quote 0
                • EGOL
                  EGOL last edited by Dec 28, 2018, 6:09 PM Dec 28, 2018, 6:09 PM

                  First, nice work on getting a new website with metrics that might be better.

                  Since you only have a few days of data, and its over the Christmas holiday, don't bet on the new metrics yet.  They might simply be a result of return visitors stumbling around the site trying to find things that they were returning to see, or snooping around for something different.  Your metrics will probably be improved, but don't take it to the bank yet.

                  If you get improved metrics, will it increase your rankings?  In my opinion, it will depend more on how those metrics were obtained more than the metrics themselves.  If your new metrics are a result of people being more pleased with your site and that is what caused them to explore more then you might get a rankings increase.  If the new metrics are a result of it being more difficult for people to find they want then you might get a rankings decrease.

                  Will it change moz authority?  I don't know the answer to that question, and I would not give it a single wit of thought.  Why?  Moz authority has nothing to do with how Google ranks your website, how much money you are going to make, and what people think of your website.

                  Kingalan1 1 Reply Last reply Dec 28, 2018, 8:11 PM Reply Quote 2
                  • 1 / 1
                  1 out of 8
                  • First post
                    1/8
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • HomeVaultPM

                    Local SEO - ranking the same page for multiple locations

                    Hi everyone, I am aware that issue of local SEO has been approached numerous times, but the situation that I'm dealing with is slightly different, so I'd love to receive your expert advice. I'm running the website of a property management company which services multiple locations (www.homevault.com). From our local offices in the city center, we also service neighboring towns and communities ( ex: we have an office in Charlotte NC, from which we service Charlotte plus a dozen other towns nearby). We wanted to avoid creating dozens of extra local service pages, particularly since our offers are identical per metropolitan area and we're talking of 20-30 additional local pages for each area. Instead, we decided to create local service pages only for the main locations. Needless to say, we're now ranking for the main locations, but we're missing on all searches for property management in neighboring towns (we're doing good on searches such as 'charlotte property management', but we're practically invisible for 'davidson property management', although we're searvicing that area as well). What we've done so far to try and fix the situation: 1. The current location pages do include descriptions of areas that we serve. 2. We've included 1-2 keywords for the sattelite locations in the main location pages, but we're nowhere near the optimization needed to rank for local searches in neighboring towns (ie, some main local service pages rank on pages 2-4 for sattelite towns, so not good enough). 3. We've included the searviced areas in our local GMBs, directories, social media profiles etc. None of these solutions appear to work great. Should I go ahead and create the classic local pages for each and every town and optimize them on those particular keywords, even if the offer is practically the same, and the number of pages risks going out of control? Any other better ideas? Many thanks in advance!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 22, 2021, 5:55 PM | HomeVaultPM
                    0
                  • AL123al

                    Page rank and menus

                    Hi, My client has a large website and has a navigation with main categories. However, they also have a hamburger type navigation in the top right. If you click it it opens to a massive menu with every category and page visible. Do you know if having a navigation like this bleeds page rank? So if all deep pages are visible from the hamburger navigation this means that page rank is not being conserved to the main categories. If you click a main category in the main navigation (not the hamburger) you can see the sub pages. I think this is the right structure but the client has installed this huge menu to make it easier for people to see what there is. From a technical SEO  is this not bad?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Aug 28, 2018, 5:24 PM | AL123al
                    0
                  • ParisChildress

                    If a page ranks in the wrong country and is redirected, does that problem pass to the new page?

                    Hi guys, I'm having a weird problem: A new multilingual site was launched about 2 months ago. It has correct hreflang tags and Geo targetting in GSC for every language version. We redirected some relevant pages (with good PA) from another website of our client's. It turned out that the pages were not ranking in the correct country markets (for example, the en-gb page ranking in the USA). The pages from our site seem to have the same problem. Do you think they inherited it due to the redirects? Is it possible that Google will sort things out over some time, given the fact that the new pages have correct hreflangs? Is there stuff we could do to help ranking in the correct country markets?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 13, 2018, 4:51 PM | ParisChildress
                    1
                  • RWW

                    Will obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on my ranking?

                    I would like to obfuscate my HTML so that people do not see that I used a Template on my site. Does obfuscating HTML have a bad effect on the ranking in google? Thanks!

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 10, 2015, 9:49 AM | RWW
                    0
                  • CayenneRed89

                    Help! The website ranks fine but one of my web pages simply won't rank on Google!!!

                    One of our web pages will not rank on Google.  The website as a whole ranks fine except just one section...We have tested and it looks fine...Google can crawl the page no problem.   There are no spurious redirects in place. The content is fine.  There is no duplicate page content issue.  The page has a dozen product images (photos) but the load time of the page is absolutely fine.  We have the submitted the page via webmaster and its fine.  It gets listed but then a few hours later disappears!!!  The site has not been penalised as we get good rankings with other pages.  Can anyone help?  Know about this problem?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 9, 2015, 12:14 PM | CayenneRed89
                    0
                  • Philip-DiPatrizio

                    Putting "noindex" on a page that's in an iframe... what will that mean for the parent page?

                    If I've got a page that is being called in an iframe, on my homepage, and I don't want that called page to be indexed.... so I put a noindex tag on the called page (but not on the homepage) what might that mean for the homepage?  Nothing?  Will Google, Bing, Yahoo, or anyone else, potentially see that as a noindex tag on my homepage?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | May 30, 2014, 2:43 PM | Philip-DiPatrizio
                    0
                  • fabioricotta-84038

                    How long takes to a page show up in Google results after removing noindex from a page?

                    Hi folks, A client of mine created a new page and used meta robots noindex to not show the page while they are not ready to launch it. The problem is that somehow Google "crawled" the page and now, after removing the meta robots noindex, the page does not show up in the results. We've tried to crawl it using Fetch as Googlebot, and then submit it using the button that appears. We've included the page in sitemap.xml and also used the old Google submit new page URL https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url Does anyone know how long will it take for Google to show the page AFTER removing meta robots noindex from the page? Any reliable references of the statement? I did not find any Google video/post  about this. I know that in some days it will appear but I'd like to have a good reference for the future. Thanks.

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 9, 2014, 8:06 PM | fabioricotta-84038
                    0
                  • UnderRugSwept

                    /%category%/%postname%/ Permalink structure

                    Mostly everyone seems to agree that /%category%/%postname%/ is the best blog structure. I'm thinking of changing my structure to that because now it's structured by date which is bad. But almost all of my posts are assigned to more than one category. Won't this create duplicate pages?

                    Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 27, 2012, 11:37 AM | UnderRugSwept
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.