Dwell Time
Dwell time is how long a person stays on a page after clicking it in search results, before going back to the results. Bing's webmaster blog described it in 2011 as the time between someone clicking a Bing result and coming back from the website, and said short dwell times can mean a page isn't holding the visitor's interest.
Source: Bing Webmaster Blog, How To Build Quality Content (August 2, 2011), archived copy, checked October 29, 2026
What Dwell Time means for your business
We haven't found a Google page that names dwell time. Google says only that it uses anonymized interaction data to judge results, without saying which kinds. At the US antitrust trial in 2023, Google's Pandu Nayak testified that a system called NavBoost remembers past clicks for past searches, which our NavBoost entry covers.
Bing has been more open. The same 2011 post said a minute or two can mean the visitor read the page, under a couple of seconds can look like a poor result, and dwell time is one thing Bing watches among others.
You can't see your own dwell time. We haven't found a Google or Bing report that shows it to site owners, and the time-on-site numbers in your analytics count every visitor, not just people heading back to search results. We'd skip chasing it and make the first screen of the page answer the question in its title.
If you've been told to raise a number you can't even see, the numbers we'd track instead start with your calls, bookings and sales.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview listed eight meanings, from cybersecurity to firearms, with SEO as one line and no search engine's own docs cited; it leaned on Wikipedia, vendor blogs and YouTube. ChatGPT gave retail and logistics meanings, didn't mention search and cited no sources.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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