[Houshalter]

I think just clicking the link and then clicking a different link counts against the first link. It probably doesn't matter if you actually use the back button or not.

I don't know how they account for people clicking multiple links in new tabs. My guess is they reorder links sometimes so that users that click multiple links cancel each other out. They just try to maximize the probability you will click on a link and not come back to the search page.

[tokenizerrr]

Well, I guess I cause a LOT of bad rankings for sites. I tend to just open a lot of results in different tabs, then go through them one by one.

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, me too. My typical pattern when doing a search is to quickly middle-click the first three or four promising-looking results and look through those, and if that wasn't enough, go back for more.

[vxNsr]

I generally do the same thing, rarely do I get a hit with the first link.

[panglott]

Me too, but I don't click on links that look obviously bad. I open the half-dozen or so most promising links.

[dangoldin]

They might also look at the timestamp between the clicks. If they're all together they might realize it's just someone opening multiple tabs at once. If they're a few minutes apart that may mean something else.

[gradys]

They could also tell that you didn't leave the SERP between clicks.

[throwaway7767]

Do you have any reference to confirm that google does this? I really doubt it would be a useful heuristic, as just because someone opens another search result does not mean the first one was not valuable.

Not saying they don't, but it seems unlikely and I'd be curious to know if this can be confirmed.

[simula67]

When Marissa Mayer was working on Google User Experience she mentioned that Google did this : https://youtu.be/LT1UFZSbcxE?t=3462