Google may remove your page from search if users don't interact with it

Google may remove pages from its search results (or even its index) if users don't interact with them. This was recently confirmed by Google's Martin Splitt in a Google Search Central YouTube video. This corroborates previous Google statements (dating back to 2019) and aligns with information from the DOJ's Navboost investigation and a data leak.

Splitt's Statement: A key excerpt from the video (timestamped around the 2-minute mark) highlights this: "...we found that users don’t really use them in search results. So we thought like, yeah, okay, we gave it a chance but, ehh, you know others are doing better here." (See the full quote below).

What constitutes "interaction"? While Google remains vague on the specifics, the data leak offers some clues.

The Full Quote: For complete context, here's Splitt's full statement:

"Hello and welcome to the office hours again. We got a question from someone who didn’t leave us their name so it’s a mystery question, but the question was pretty good so I thought I’d pick it anyway. The question goes: My site has been indexed and the pages have been added to the sitemap but they are still not appearing in search. Well that can happen. So for something to show up in search it has to go through a bunch of different stages... But then when someone asks a question, we look in the index for all the pages that we have that will probably be a good answer or good search result for that question, for the query. And then we’re not picking your pages apparently. If they are not showing up so it’s either that the query is a bit weird or that the query hasn’t actually been asked that much or that we have other pages that we think will help the user more than yours. So that’s a performance problem that likely has to do something with around the content that you have on the pages. So you might want to check that out, especially if pages fall off the index again. That means that we thought they might be good but we found that users don’t really use them in search results. So we thought like, yeah, okay, we gave it a chance but, ehh, you know others are doing better here. So you want to have a look at your content because it’s very likely that your content isn’t really serving much in terms of queries coming in and that’s why it’s not showing up in search results."

Key Takeaway: This underscores the importance of creating user-centric, engaging content. Prioritizing user experience, improving site usability, and fostering repeat visits not only enhances user satisfaction and conversions but also contributes to maintaining your website's visibility in Google's search results.

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