Bing has just confirmed at SMX East that they use click through rate (CTR) in their ranking algorithm.

I personally walked over to Steve Tullis, Senior Program Manager Lead, Bing, Microsoft and asked him if he really said they use click through rate in the ranking algorithm. He said, yes we do – but it is one of the many factors.

In my live blogging coverage of the “ask the search engines” panel, I wrote that Steve said they “are using the data to improve the search results. He is saying it in a way that implies it is not site specific but more overall. Not on an individual level.” I then submitted a follow up question:

Q) Do you use CTR as a factor? A) Google said it might be used for user behavior testing, but implied not in the ranking algo.

Bing said if things in the search results that do not get clicked on they will likely lower the ranking. So yes, Bing uses CTR in ranking algo.

So I walked over to Steve to concretely confirm they use CTR and he confirmed it.

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing | Microsoft: Bing SEO | Top News

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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