What Is Dwell Time in SEO? Why It Matters and How To Measure

Dwell time measures the time visitors spend on your site after they come from search engines, before heading back to the search engine results page (SERP).

A potential customer is searching for a product online. Your ecommerce store comes up at the top of the search results, and the user clicks the link to check out your page. How long they stay, or “dwell,” on your page before clicking back to the search results can help you understand how your content is performing. 

Google is a bit mysterious about whether this metric is something it uses in its algorithm to rank search results. Regardless, understanding dwell time can give you useful signals about your content readability, engagement, and appeal. Are visitors finding what they expected when clicking your link?

Here’s what dwell time is, how it can impact search engine optimization (SEO), and steps you can take to increase dwell time on your site.

What is dwell time?

Dwell time measures the time visitors spend on your site after they come from search engines, before heading back to the search engine results page (SERP). A dwell time of a few seconds suggests the user quickly left the web content because it didn’t match their intent. A dwell time of a few minutes or more suggests they had a more satisfying user experience and found what they were looking for. 

Dwell time vs bounce rate

Dwell time and bounce rate are both user engagement metrics that examine exit activity (when the user leaves a web page). Bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave a website without taking an action, regardless of how they arrived (e.g., not necessarily through a Google search) or where they go next (e.g., other websites). 

Dwell time only looks at visitors arriving at and leaving a website from search engine results. 

Dwell time vs time on page

Dwell time and time on page both measure the time a visitor spends on a page in different user journeys. Time on page captures duration for single-page sessions—how long a visitor spends on one page of a website before moving to another page on the same website, during a single session.

How does dwell time affect SEO?

Google does not officially count dwell time as an SEO metric, and it’s unclear how it factors into search rankings. But it’s still telling: a low average dwell time signals the need to revisit your content and better align it with user intent. 

A 2024 leak of internal Google documents revealed that Google can track “long click” behaviors, meaning how much time a user spends on a page before clicking elsewhere. The SEO team at the agency iPULLRANK analyzed Google Search’s Content Warehouse API and discovered a module that stores the longest click during a session. While there’s no actual named ranking signal for dwell time, it’s conceivable that long clicks could be used to measure dwell time. But Google doesn’t acknowledge it as a ranking factor. 

How dwell time works

While there’s no direct way to measure dwell time, a little bit of detective work with tools like Google Analytics can provide good estimates. Here’s how to do it:

1. In Google Analytics, add a segment for organic traffic only. This filters for users coming in from SERPs.

2. Look for patterns. Compare metrics for time on page, bounce rate, and pages per session in the filtered data. 

3. If time on page is low, bounce rate is high, and pages per session is zero or one, you can assume that average dwell time is an area of concern.

Imagine you have a Shopify store selling high-quality jewelry for daily wear. Here’s how you’d calculate dwell time:

1. A user searches Google for “flat back 18k gold earrings.”

2. They click on your web page in the search results and stay on your website for two minutes and 10 seconds.

3. Then they turn back to the SERP to explore other sites.

4. The dwell time for the website is two minutes 10 seconds.

The assumption is that the longer someone stays on a page, the more engaged they are with your content, and the better optimized your content is for your target audience. That said, short dwell times aren’t necessarily bad. The user may have left quickly because they found the information they were looking for right away, implying your content is well-organized and easy to navigate. 

For example, if the user intends to find your store’s contact info, it isn’t going to take more than a few seconds to find, copy, and paste it. The user engagement, in this case, was satisfying, even if it wasn’t lasting long.

Dwell time and user satisfaction

Google is constantly refining its search ranking algorithm. The algorithm was once the purview of human experts, but Google is reportedly delegating some search algorithm refinements to machine learning AI tools, collectively known as RankBrain. RankBrain learns how users engage with search results to determine levels of user satisfaction. It considers user experience signals such as:

• Organic click-through-rate (CTR). CTR is the percentage of users who click on a website’s link in organic search results versus how often it’s shown. High-CTR pages with low dwell time suggest a disconnect between what users expected from the snippet and what the page actually delivered.

• Bounce rate. High bounce rates on high CTR pages indicate low dwell times, another red flag. 

• Pogo-sticking. This behavior involves users repeatedly returning to other pages in search results and clicking on site after site until they find a satisfying result. When RankBrain detects significant pogo-sticking on a high-ranking site, it might mean poor user satisfaction and lead to downranking.

How to improve dwell time

• Use analytics tools to identify problem pages
• Harmonize content with search intent
• Optimize the user experience
• Avoid clickbait
• Embed video, audio, and graphics
• Write clear copy

One comprehensive rule applies when improving dwell time averages: high-quality content tends to foster more lasting user engagement. Other strategies include:

Use analytics tools to identify problem pages

Use tools like Google Analytics to identify different pages suffering from low duration times. 

• Configure your analytics. Set your dashboard to filter for organic search traffic. This zooms in on users arriving from SERPs. 

• Compare other metrics. This includes bounce rate, time on page, and engagement rate. 

• Identify patterns. Look for organic traffic with high bounce rates, low engagement rates, and low time on page—signs users are pogo-sticking off your pages. 

Remember, dwell times are relative to expected user behavior. For instance, a contact page is unlikely to have a high dwell time. But a product page with low dwell time is not satisfying user intent and should be optimized. 

Harmonize content with search intent

To understand why users aren’t engaging with your web content, analyze what they’re searching for and why (i.e., their search intent). People searching on Google are usually pursuing a specific goal, which can often be categorized, such as:

• Learning something (educational intent)

• Buying a product (commercial intent)

• Comparison shopping (browsing intent)

• Finding useful info (pragmatic intent)

When the user’s search intent relates closely to web content, it has a better chance of keeping users engaged, and they stick around longer. Use your analytics tool to study actual keyword searches, then revise the content quality to satisfy intentional demand. 

For example, if the keywords indicate a product browsing intention, you can add a “Similar products” section to product pages, which encourages continued comparison shopping. If you detect an educational intent for a blog page, you might add additional how-to tutorials in the form of embedded videos to extend dwell times for these pages.

Optimize the user experience

Look at how your web pages structure content. Is it easy to get around and find practical information? 

Start by auditing the user experience (UX). Then, as needed, add internal links, scannable headings, a table of contents, and bullet points, and optimize for mobile friendliness. Internal links let users jump to different sections on the same page, making it easier to navigate and encouraging users to engage with the content. To maximize their effectiveness, link to valuable sections that visitors are likely to care about and use descriptive, meaningful anchor text—the clickable words in a hyperlink.

Logical headings and subheads make web pages easier to skim, encouraging users to keep scrolling and adding to dwell time. A table of contents for long-form content pages gives users a preview of the topics covered. Each item in the table should be an internal link to make it easy to jump directly to the most relevant content. 

Bullet points add clarity and spaciousness to a dense text layout, and they’re easy to scan. Keep a range of items in the list manageable—three to six items is about right. 

Because most users browse on mobile devices, a fast loading speed is essential. If web pages aren’t optimized for speed and mobile screen sizes, users are likely to bounce. 

Avoid clickbait

Clickbait teases users with false promises—a cheap, counterproductive tactic for generating clicks. By manipulating headlines and meta tags to mislead visitors, it fails to deliver on expectations, erodes trust, and leads to bouncing and pogo-sticking, ultimately reducing dwell time.

Avoid clickbait. Instead, write concise, accurate headlines and meta descriptions, and deliver on the content promised. 

Embed video, audio, and graphics

Adding multimedia elements to break up text can help keep visitors interested in your site content. Hero background videos—full-screen, high-quality videos placed prominently in your site’s header section—can hook visitors to hang around longer. Embedded YouTube video lets visitors watch extended content without leaving the page. Podcasts can also be embedded. Compelling visuals like charts, graphs, and diagrams have the benefits of breaking up text and adding value and sizzle to a layout. 

If you have branded content on other social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, create synergy by featuring select pieces on your website.

Write clear copy

Writing quality content is another key to extending users’ stay on the site. Good website copy is entertaining, informative, and useful. Take stock of your site’s writing quality and ask: Are headlines and subheads descriptive and accurate? Are paragraphs and sentences concise? Is the writing style fun to read? 

Follow some basic copy guidelines like the PPT formula to prep readers and draw them deeper into the content funnel: 

• Preview. Hook readers with a strong lead sentence that previews the content.

• Proof. The second and third sentences offer proof that the content has valuable information—“news you can use.” 

• Transition. Finish each section with a transition stage to the next section. This encourages readers to keep going.

While it’s true that conventional web style favors short paragraphs, don’t be afraid to write longer web pages. In-depth, long-form content gives an impression of comprehensiveness, which, coupled with healthy internal linking, invites readers to stay longer. Make sure that long pages are segmented into digestible short sections that are easy to scan and scroll through.

Dwell time in SEO FAQ

How does dwell time affect SEO?

Higher dwell times indicate that users are more satisfied with how web content is presented and organized, resulting in lower bounce rates, increased page relevance, and average engagement time—all of which contribute to higher search rank.

What is a good dwell time?

Since dwell time is not an official Google metric, there are no reliable numbers on ideal dwell time. You can get hints by examining the average session duration metric. A good average session duration is two to four minutes. Less than one minute is poor.

How is dwell time calculated?

There’s no direct way to calculate dwell time, but you can estimate it with tools like Google Analytics. First, create a segment for organic traffic only, then compare the metrics for time on page, bounce rate, and pages per session.