Pogo-sticking
Pogo-sticking is when a searcher clicks a result, comes straight back to the results page, and tries another one.
Pogo-sticking is when someone clicks a search result, quickly comes back to the results page, and clicks a different one. They bounce between results like on a pogo stick, because the pages they open don't give them what they wanted.
It's a sign your page made a promise in the results that it didn't keep, or that it was too slow or too cluttered to find out.
Pogo-sticking or bouncing?
The two get mixed up. A bounce is any visit that leaves after one page, wherever it goes next. Someone who reads your recipe, gets what they need and closes the tab has bounced, and that's fine. Pogo-sticking is the specific case where they go back to the results to try someone else. Your analytics can't tell the two apart, because it can't see what the person did after leaving.
Does it affect rankings?
Google doesn't say it uses pogo-sticking as a ranking signal, and SEO people have argued about it for years. What's certain is that pogo-sticking shows a page failing the person who clicked it. It's worth fixing whether it moves rankings or not.
Common causes
- A title that promises something the page doesn't deliver
- An answer buried under a long introduction, pop-ups or ads
- A slow page, especially on a phone
- The wrong intent: a product page for someone who wanted a guide, or the reverse
For example, Fernhill Coffee's page titled "How much coffee per cup" opens with 400 words on the history of coffee. Readers scroll, give up, and go back to the results. Moving the answer, "about 15g of coffee to 250ml of water," to the first line fixes it.
Pogo-sticking and AI search
AI answers do some of this work for people: the platform reads several pages and gives one answer, so there's less clicking back and forth. But when someone does click through from an AI answer, they arrive expecting the page to confirm what they were told. A page that's slow or hides the point loses them just the same.
In AnswerOrbit, the AI traffic tab in Website shows an engagement rate for AI visits, if you've set up key events in Google Analytics. A visit counts as engaged when it lasts over 10 seconds, sees two pages or has a key event.