Pogo Sticking: Causes & Differences with Bounce Rate

You might come across the term “pogo sticking” in SEO articles or discussions. This term may look like a funny name, and you might wonder what it means. Well, in contrast to its playful name, this is actually a serious issue that can negatively affect your search engine rankings.

Therefore, you need to understand what pogo sticking is and what causes them to address the problem. In this article, you will find an overview of pogo sticking as well as how it differs from bounce rate. Read on to learn more!

What Is Pogo Sticking?

Pogo sticking in SEO is a term that describes a situation when users visit a page quickly, then return to the search results pages (SERPs) and click on another site. This behaviour typically occurs when the user is unsatisfied with the content on the page they have visited. 

For example, you type a query in Google and click on a site that you find relevant. However, it is not what you are looking for, so you quickly leave the page to return to the SERPs. Then, you click on another site to find what you want.

How Pogo Sticking Affects Your SEO Efforts

When there are a lot of users who pogo stick on your site, it will be the worst-case scenario in SEO. Why is it bad? Read the following reasons to figure out the answer:

• User experience (UX): Users who pogo stick are not satisfied with the content on your site, leading to a poor user experience.
• Content relevance and quality: If your content does not provide the information users expect, they will immediately leave and return to the SERPs.
• Ranking: Google algorithms are designed to rank sites that have high user satisfaction. In other words, pogo sticking can downgrade your site’s ranking.

Differences between Pogo Sticking and Bounce Rate

At first glance, pogo sticking and bounce rate may seem to be the same thing. Many people confuse the two because they are both related to the concept of users leaving a site. However, they are quite different.

Pogo sticking is a case when users return to the SERPs after visiting a site within a short period time. On the other hand, bounce rate is the percentage of users who stay for a while and leave without taking action, such as clicking a link, putting an item in the cart, or filling out a form.

So, let’s say a visitor reads an article until the end. However, the visitor does not perform any action before leaving the site. This counts as a bounce rate. Every website has a bounce rate, indicating how many people visited and left without interacting with the site.

What Causes Pogo Sticking?

Pogo sticking happens for some reason. Let’s look at the most common reasons why people pogo stick a web page below:

1. ‘Tricked’ by Clickbait Content

The first reason that may cause pogo sticking in SEO is clickbait content. Clickbait content is a term for content that is intended to entice users to click a link and read the content. 

In this case, the content may be overpromised or exaggerated, leading to the users' disappointment when they read it. 

For example, a website may write an article titled ‘10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Internet’. The article may promise to reveal unknown facts about the internet, but in reality, the content fails to deliver on its promise and disappoints the reader. 

2. Hidden or Buried Information

Buried information means that users cannot find the information they are looking for even though it exists in the content. This is because the information is buried under a bunch of unnecessary text, concealed by confusing language, or inaccessible to readers.

For example, you may be looking for specific details about a product you are interested in. However, the information you need may be hidden under a long introduction text and irrelevant product features until you finally find it at the end of the page. 

The product information you are looking for is actually there, but it is at the far end of the page. Before you can find it, you must have gone through unnecessary and irrelevant text, which you perceived as just wasting time and made you leave the page immediately. 

3. Gated Content

Gated content is content that users can only access after they fill out a form or provide their contact information. This is typically used to collect user data for marketing purposes. 

This type of content can frustrate users because they do not have the information they need and must go through a tedious process to get it. So, instead of submitting the form, they will likely leave the site immediately.

Therefore, avoid gating essential information from users and give them what they need to know right away. Otherwise, users will pogo stick to another site that offers them the information without the hassle.

4. Content Does Not Match Search Intent

A mismatch between a page's content and users’ search intent can be a big problem. If the content does not match the users’ expectations, they will likely leave the page immediately. 

Therefore, you need to align your content with search intent by directly addressing what people are searching for in a way that makes it easy for them to find it. 

To ensure your content is relevant to the user’s needs, you should analyse the top-ranking results for your keyword. Then, you can write better content to satisfy the user and help them find what they need.

5. Poor User Experience (UX)

If your website does not have a good UX, users will be frustrated and suspicious of its quality, which will result in them leaving it quickly to the SERPs. 

There are several reasons why a website may have bad UX, such as slow loading speeds, a lack of clear navigation, annoying ads, a confusing layout, a pushy sign-up form that covers the content, and not being mobile-optimised.

6. Casual Clickers

Casual clickers refer to users simply browsing around without intending to stay for long. This behaviour causes pogo sticking in SEO, where users quickly leave one page and jump to another site.

In general, casual clickers are people searching for inspiration, snippets of information that are easy to grasp without much reading, comparing prices, or trying to recall a site they saw the other day. 

Since this behaviour is normal and people often do it, penalising the sites visited for pogo sticking wouldn’t make sense. Pogo sticking, in this case, doesn’t mean that a page is of bad quality but rather somewhat related to users' browsing habits.

7. Slow Loading Time

Did you know that nearly three-quarters of shoppers surveyed by Unbounce will wait around 4 seconds for a page to load before they abandon the site? That finding is similar to Google's, which stated that most users bounce from a site after 3 seconds.

Therefore, it is important to optimise your site to load faster and ensure that it is running smoothly. This will decrease the number of people pogo sticking to your site and engage more people to stay longer. 

To test your page speed, you can use the testing tools on the internet like Page Speed Test by cmlabs.

8. Stuffed with Ads

Excessive ads can prevent users from engaging with your content. Many users will leave when they see an overwhelming number of distracting ads, causing frustration and making them return to the SERPs.

To address this issue, you can control the number and placement of ads on your site. Don’t put too many ads, and place them in a way that doesn’t interfere with the user experience.

9. Poor Website Design

Users want to have a great experience when they visit your site. However, imagine if the layout and design of your site are clunky and messy. How do you expect them to stay on your site? 

Therefore, it’s important to design a website that has SEO-friendly design and works well across different devices. Try to evaluate how well your website is performing and consider investing in a modern and responsive website design to avoid people pogo sticking.

10. Poor Readability

Readability is an essential aspect that tells how easy it is for your audience to read and understand your content.

If your content is difficult to read due to poor font choices or contrasting colours that don’t work well together, you will lose your readers out of frustration, and they will bounce back to the SERPs.

Conclusion

Those are the overviews of pogo sticking and its difference with bounce rate. Note that pogo sticking can be a real headache when there are so many users who are doing it. 

Consequently, Google will see that as a signal that your website is not providing the best user experience, which ultimately negatively affects your ranking. 

Therefore, if this phenomenon occurs on your website, you must immediately take measures to stop it by identifying the causes and solving them accordingly. However, there is a saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

In such cases, you highly need to optimise your content to be SEO-friendly in the first place so you won’t experience pogo sticking. To create high-quality SEO content, you can hire experts to help you out with it.

SEO Services by cmlabs is here to help you with all your SEO needs, from content creation to technical SEO. Our team of SEO specialists can help you create high-quality, SEO-friendly content that will attract and engage your target audience longer. So, why don’t you give it a try? Contact our marketing team today and schedule a meeting to discuss your SEO goals!