Is Activity Important for Google Algorithms?
Google's search algorithm draws on more than 200 different signals when ranking a particular Web page. Most of these signals are a fiercely guarded secret. Nonetheless, Google does offer some suggestions on how to improve your site's rankings, and search engine optimization experts constantly find new ways to rank better. Site activity plays a role in ranking, at least in terms of how often you update the content on your site.
Other People Are Reading
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Activity
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Activity is important for the Google algorithm. However, activity is measured using a variety of signals, not simply the amount of people that land on your site. Google looks to avoid using signals that are easily manipulated. If traffic was a large factor, webmasters could easily game the system to set up fake traffic spikes. Instead, Google looks for proof that your site is alive, fresh and active. It then looks at a combination of incoming links, existing content and traffic from different sources before deciding on your website's relevance and authority.
Fresh Content
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Adding fresh content to your website encourages Google Spiders -- software that crawls Web pages -- to return more frequently. Every time they return, they look for new content to add to the Google index. Of course, new content doesn't automatically outrank old content. However, having an active, regularly updated website suggests to the Google algorithm that your site is more likely to be relevant and to offer searchers new information. So, activity on your site in the form of new blog posts, articles, videos or other forms of content is important to the Google algorithm.
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Links
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Google has always placed heavy emphasis on the quality and amount of incoming hyperlinks to a particular website. Lots of activity in terms of inbound links suggests to the Google algorithm that you have something useful and authoritative on your site. For example, if many different bloggers link to a piece of your content, that link activity increases the authority of the content. Then, when searchers look for a term related to that content, it's more likely to rank highly in the algorithm.
Social Media
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In 2010 Google experts admitted in an interview with Search Engine Land that their algorithm takes social media activity signals into account when ranking pages. For example, links from established Facebook and Twitter users to your content can have a positive effect on your site. In particular, Twitter activity is easier for Google to measure as much of Facebook's content exists behind private accounts. Lots of activity pointing links to a part of your website suggests that a piece of content is currently seen as useful and relevant. Google is therefore more likely to rank it higher.
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