Evidence

What the public record says about clicks.

We'd rather show you the sources than make claims. Read them in full and decide for yourself.

In short

Google patents and testimony in United States v. Google describe systems that use click and dwell data in ranking. Google's spam policies also prohibit automated queries and clicks intended to manipulate rankings. Both are relevant to any decision about SERP clicks.

Patent

Modifying search result ranking based on implicit user feedback

The patent describes using measures of how users interact with search results, including how long they stay on a result after clicking, to adjust ranking.

US Patent 8,661,029 (Google)

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Court record

Trial testimony on NavBoost

Google engineers testified that NavBoost, a system that uses click data from past searches, is one of the signals used in ranking web results.

United States v. Google LLC (2023)

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Policy

Spam policies for Google web search

Google's policies list machine-generated traffic, including automated queries, as a violation. We include this so the evidence is read in full context.

Google Search Central

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Updated 20 October 2026

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