What is Dwell Time and why does it matter for SEO

What is Dwell Time in SEO?

Dwell time is the amount of time users spend on a page from the search results before returning to the search engine results page (SERP).

It’s a measurement of a user’s dwell time—how long they stay on a page from the time they click on a search result and end when they navigate away from the page.

Let’s say you’re looking for a “homemade pesto recipe.”

You click on the first organic result you see. This is an unstructured article with a long personal background before the recipe. And it’s full of ads.

You return to the SERP after only 10 seconds. The rest time is 10 seconds in this case.

Then you visit another recipe article. It is easy to follow and useful. You use that recipe and spend more than five minutes on that page. The residence time is much higher here.

Dwell time is not a confirmed Google ranking factor. But it can help you measure user interest in your pages.

Let’s discuss dwell time’s relationship with SEO. Then we will show you how to calculate and increase your stay time.

Is Dwell Time a Ranking Factor?

Bing was the first search engine to mention dwell time back in 2011. It described dwell time as “a signal we look at” to determine quality.

But is dwell time a ranking factor for Google? It doesn’t seem likely.

Some SEOs believe that dwell time has an impact on rankings because Google has hinted at it can affect machine learning algorithms. But there is no definitive proof.

In fact, Google’s Gary Illyes has in a 2019 Reddit...