SEO Glossary: User Signals

 

What are user signals?

Fully translated, user signals are as much as user signals. They are an important part of search engine optimization and are generated while a user is on a website. Large search engines such as Google are now able to precisely recognize and subsequently evaluate various user signals. This makes it all the more important to pay attention to this point.

 

The aim of search engines is to determine the relevance and quality of individual search results based on user signals. It is therefore obvious that user signals are one of many ranking factors and influence the position of a website in the SERPs have.

 

 

What types of user signals are there?

A look at the user signals shows that there are different types of signals. They are discussed below:

 

• Bounce rate: This is the bounce rate. If the bounce rate is high, this can be a clear sign of faulty technology (e.g. long loading times) or poor content. If you have a high bounce rate, you should urgently get to the bottom of the cause. But it is not necessarily a negative indication.
• Time on site: How long does a user stay on a website? This can be recognized by the length of stay, also known as time on site. It is measured in hours, minutes and seconds. The longer users stay on your website, the more interesting your content is.
• Return-to-SERP rate (RTS rate): How many users click on a page in the SERPs and return directly afterwards? This is exactly what the return-to-SERP rate shows. If the rate is blatantly high, search engines conclude from this that users may not find what they were actually looking for. This could be, for example, poorly relevant, thin content or faulty technology.
• CLICK-THROUGH-RATE (CTR): When a website appears in the SERPs, a certain proportion of users click on the result. The corresponding ratio between impressions and actual clicks can be recognized by the CTR. This allows search engines to recognize whether the snippet has fulfilled the user's need or not. The same applies to advertisements in the SERPs.

 

Why are user signals so important for the search engine?

In SEO circles, user signals are discussed time and again. Consequently, there are different opinions on the extent to which user signals influence rankings. It is not always clear that user signals are a clear indication of how good the quality of a piece of content really is.

 

However, search engines such as Google are now able to compare several values with each other. For example, if a website stands out due to a high RTS rate, other metrics are also determined and included. This makes it easier to determine whether, for example, the content is of poor quality or the user signals have a technical cause.