Pogo Sticking

Pogo sticking is a phenomenon that occurs when a user clicks on a search result, does not find what he or she is looking for on the page, then goes back to the search results and clicks on another result.

The expression is named after the pogo stick, which in Anglo-Saxon culture is the classic springboard.

This behavior can indicate to search engines that the first page was not useful for the user’s search query, which could negatively affect the ranking of that page in search results. Unlike bounce rate, pogo sticking is always negative because it is a signal of user dissatisfaction with the content and-in a broader sense-the actual relevance of the results shown by Google.