eBay shared some SEO tips with affiliates on Wednesday to help them maximize their efforts to rank higher on search engines such as Google. The “Ask Me Anything” Q&A with eBay’s head of SEO Pete Dainty contained answers to two questions from members of eBay’s affiliate program known as the eBay Partner Network (ePN).
One affiliate publisher wondered whether Google used its popular Google Analytics service to mine data – such as Time On Site and Bounce Rate metrics – to influence site/page ranking.
Dainty said he would not assume Google uses site analytics data or data from its Chrome browser to influence rankings. But he said bounce rate is an important metric that eBay itself uses internally to measure its site experience – what matters most is if people engage, he said. “Very simply, the lower the bounce rate, the more people are engaging with your site and that can only be good. Google, for example, wants to reward great user experience as per its own guidelines and this is where I’d focus.”
Another affiliate asked if AMP pages were going to be key in eBay SEO in the near future.
“Irrespective of search engine rankings, AMP pages are key for a faster mobile experience and solving for impatience and frustration from tolerating slow loading sites,” Dainty said, referring affiliates to AMPProject.org for more information.
“eBay wants to have the fastest possible experience for all people, if search engines choose to reward it, that’s great, but site experience comes first,” he said. “There have been numerous studies on the impact of site speed on engagement, so again ignoring search engine rankings, having a faster site should please more of our customers and that’s key for eBay.”
Dainty manages eBay’s global operations and is responsible for regenerating and growing organic traffic. He joined eBay in 2015 from Hotels.com. You can read the full interview on the eBay Partner Network website.
Note that eBay has also been running a series on optimizing content for SEO on the ePN blog.
