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Good points Marshal,
I've noticed that google (at least with my adult sites) really seems to emphasize user-experience metrics a lot. On my sites with low bounce rates and better engagement I'll rank without many backlinks at all... sometimes a shockingly low amount of backlinks. If the bounce rate and metrics aren't so great then no amount of links seems to work. It's an uphill battle and I'm constantly bouncing out of the rankings all the time... I am seeing this over and over again, between sites with very similar competition levels. The ones with better user experience rank much easier and hold rankings better.
That being said, what user-experience metrics do you believe google is able to look at other then bouncing back to the results? Dwell time? CTR on the search results? What are the main metrics you believe they are looking at?
It makes a lot of sense to me that they take user-experience into account as much as they can, as much as they keep 'perfecting' their algorithm, its still a robot. Human feedback obviously matters.
Also, do you think the "google dance" is essentially google testing your site out for the human feedback? Because again and again I'll watch them give my sites a shot, putting them at the top for a little bit, even if they have barely warranted being there... sites with poor metrics seem to keep bouncing back out a lot. If the site is stronger, sometimes it'll hold with little to no dancing. I find all this stuff really interesting lol.
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