Definition: Dwell Time

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Dwell time is a metric that measures the amount of time a user spends on a website after clicking a search engine result. It is often used by search engines to gauge the relevance and quality of a web page in relation to a user’s search query. A high dwell time indicates that the user has found the content on the page to be relevant and valuable, and is therefore spending more time on the site. On the other hand, a low dwell time may indicate that the user has quickly realized that the page is not what they were looking for, and has quickly moved on to a different result. Factors such as page design, content quality, and user experience can all affect dwell time and can play a role in determining a website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs)

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By Ashley Bryan

Ashley Bryan is an Internet Strategist and a SEO Consultant located on the Sunshine Coast in Australia with over 19 years' experience. He owns WebsiteStrategies which serves small to medium businesses in Australia and New Zealand. Follow him: Facebook LinkedIn Twitter