Understanding Pogo-Sticking in SEO
When it comes to SEO and site performance analysis, it’s important to know the difference between bounce rate and pogo-sticking. While these browsing metrics are closely related, they’re not the same. So let’s delve into the details and find out why internet users ‘bounce’ or ‘pogo-stick’ in the first place.
Bounce Rate and Pogo-Sticking Definitions
As an SEO, you might consider a high bounce rate to be negative. After all, bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and then leave rather than continuing to view other pages within the same site. While the user didn’t travel deeper into a site, a high bounce rate doesn’t always spell disaster for your SEO strategy. It could just mean that the user found what they wanted on that page or bookmarked it. They might have even shared it with friends on social media giving you extra exposure online. That said, it is important to look at why users might be leaving your site quickly if it happens a lot.
Pogo-sticking, on the other hand, is slightly different. In this case, a user performs a search, clicks on a result and very quickly clicks back to the search results page and clicks on a different result. This type of user behaviour shows that they haven’t found the information they needed from your site and therefore didn’t want to waste time. Instead, they left and looked for information elsewhere. Unlike bounce rate, pogo-sticking is not a good thing and should be investigated further. But interestingly, Google’s John Mueller revealed that pogo-sticking is not a signal when it comes to ranking search results, stating:
“We try not to use signals like that when it comes to search. So that’s something where there are lots of reasons why users might go back and forth, or look at different things in the search results, or stay just briefly on a page and move back again. I think that’s really hard to refine and say “well, we could turn this into a ranking factor.”
Don’t sit back and relax, however, as Google appreciates pages that deliver a great user experience. And if people are constantly bouncing or pogo-sticking, this doesn’t exactly create a great impression. So here are some common causes of pogo-sticking to be aware of.
- The content doesn’t match the meta description or title and therefore users are brought to the page under false pretences.
- The content is spammy. For example, an article title might seem promising, but the content could be thin, irrelevant or underwhelming.
- The content is completely off-brand and doesn’t match the tone of the website.
- The content is full of spelling errors and grammatical mistakes.
- Slow loading speeds can also lead to pogo-sticking as can too many pop-ups, a confusing or out-of-date design and a lack of usability.
For help with your SEO strategy and to reduce the amount of pogo-sticking happening on your website, contact Kent SEO agency, Whitefish Marketing, today.
