Though this part worries me: "Google pays attention to how long someone stays on the page after clicking on a search result. They actively look for which result had the “longest click” from users (longest engagement)."
Longest visit is very different from best result.
Sure it's different, but is it _very_ different? They have to choose some sort of metric. A long visit time does seem like one good indicator of the goodness of a result. Consider that they use other indicators as well, and their business largely benefits from their search being useful. It is in their interest to choose good metrics, and I'm sure they invest a lot of time into it. Why do you doubt this seemingly-sensible metric, which google has a motive to get right?
And those are both common enough that yes it's very different.
And I said it worries me, not that I'm confident google is using it wrong.
If I click in, and spend a bit of time reading, maybe I even scroll through your archive of previous articles, then that's a good sign, yeah?
What do you consider a better metric for user engagement?
Or it's a sign that the information I needed with right there.
> If I click in, and spend a bit of time reading
If I click in and spend time searching for what I wanted, that's a bad sign, yeah?
xnx•1h ago