What Is Pogo-Sticking?
Pogo-sticking is the act of a searcher going back and forth between web pages that are listed in the SERPs. It indicates that the searcher is not finding what they are looking for on a web page and immediately bounces off the site by hitting the back button and then clicking on another SERP result.
Pogo-sticking cannot be measured directly for a website because search engines do not give website owners that type of data. However, a high bounce rate can indicate that pogo-sticking may be occurring for a web page.
Pogo-sticking is a negative user signal and if the search engine algorithms detect that a web page has a high bounce back back rate to the SERPs, then the listing may be pushed down in ranking positions.
Searchers are more prone to pogo-sticking if they encounter clickbait content, slow-loading pages, a high amount of ads on a page, or the content doesn’t meet user intent.
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Go to the SEO Glossary to find more terms and definitions that relate to the field of search engine optimization.
The Editorial Staff at SEO Chatter is a team of search engine optimization and digital marketing experts led by Stephen Hockman with more than 15 years of experience in search engine marketing. We publish guides on the fundamentals of SEO for beginner marketers.
