Does paid traffic increase SE rank?

[allanjames]

I've been advised (and several providers promote) that buying traffic to a website will increase the search engine results for that website ie 10,000 targeted visitors for $whatever

The assumption being that if a ton of traffic is going to a site it must be popular and therefore Goggle decides it is worth promoting in it's results.

Before I go digging in my pocket to spend any of my hard earned cash, can anyone advise me:

1) Is it correct that brought traffic a websites ranking in search engine results?

2) If so, are there any pitfalls in doing it that I need to know about?

Thanks

[willilance]

Hi Allan,

I don't have a definite answer to this question, but I do have an assumption...

And I assume that Yes, paid traffic can increase your rankings. For the exact reason you mentioned. I've noticed some sites come up in the rankings much faster when driving paid traffic to them. If a search engine sees a site is popular, they are going to rank it higher, it's as simple as that.

However, to mention the pitfalls, I do think that if you stop paying for your traffic and your traffic goes down significantly, you can fall back down in the rankings and even possibly incur a penalty.

Again, I don't know of any evidence to support this, it is just my assumption, but one from my own experience.

[smontano]

Hello Allan,
Below is a link to a great Digg blog I read on this recently:

Never, Ever, Pay For Traffic

One thing I noticed in here that I found really important is the very end when it is talking about what to look for if you do decide to buy traffic. Coming from a marketer myself I agree that sometimes campaigns are thrown off by "cookie deletion and latent conversions". It is important to view these details and I feel this blog has some great tips on what to look for.

I also heard a few months back that Google was trying to catch sudden increases in traffic to try and stop paid for traffic. Just like Lance mentioned they are doing this by monitoring the traffic that increases and falls drastically. I hope this helps to give you a better idea on paid traffic!

[fred]

Well it depends on where the traffic is coming from. If you get some reputable SEO company to build links and place ads for you, then you will get qualified traffic, which will get you conversions and increase your rankings as well. However if you read something promising you tons of traffic and all kinds of miracles, I would be suspicious. Not only they might send you crappy traffic but if they are shady, chances are that they have already been flagged by Google and their traffic might in this case hurt your rankings.