Is there such a thing? I’ve always wondered whether Google’s organic search algorithm factors in clickthrough rate (CTR) and SERP ranking (normalised) to provide a quality score for organic listings.
This is similar to how Google Adwords’ quality score works. The higher CTR you have and normalising it against the ad position gives you a higher quality score which translates into lower CPC bid. This is how Google rewards advertisers that focus on quality and relevancy instead of just pure bidding.
The understanding is that the better optimised your text ad is (relevancy) for the actual search query and the bid term, the higher CTR you’ll receive which means searchers are taking an action and making a decision (i.e. they’ve found what they’re looking for!).
This in turn rewards Google as well because they’ve provided quality advertisements from advertisers and thus, more people continue using Google and more revenue is made through CPC ads.
So the question is, does this theory of quality score from Adwords apply to organic rankings? If I optimise my site so that it gets equal or higher CTR than what the average is for the SERP position, in Google’s eyes, is my site more relevant to the user thus rewarding my site with a higher ‘quality score’ and a higher quality score means my site would generally rank higher/better for the theme surrounding the search query?
