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Good article by +AJ Kohn, and fully agree about how the focus on the long click and reduce the lack of diversity could help to satisfy the user in the short term, but in the long-term lead users to going to the brand showing up instead of Google. Oops.

Edit: To add to this thought, I think of it as going to a downtown. If all you have are major brands in the results, you stop going. If the results are all too esoteric, you may not enjoy that either. Thus, Google has to walk a fine line to provide both kinds of results in order for users to continue to use Google for long-term satisfaction.

One quibble:

Two problems present themselves with pogosticking. The first is that it’s impossible for sites to measure this metric.

Not impossible, just costly; you can run a test for users to search as they would on Google for set terms to learn more about your site versus others.﻿
Lyndon NA's profile photoAJ Kohn's profile photoMicah Fisher-Kirshner's profile photo
AJ Kohn
Yes +Micah Fisher-Kirshner. Google talks a lot about measuring how much they 'trust' a SERP. And brands clearly boost the trust because of familiarity. But I'm unsure if 'trust' always equates to 'value'. In the end, don't we go to Google to find what we don't know, not what we do? A mix of both is good but it seems like they're creating a biased loop for the latter.

You could set up a user test or HIT to emulate pogosticking behavior. The problem, as always, is whether the instructed versus organic actions are the same. 

If you're not a parent and I tell you to go online and search to see if the cough you're hearing is croup and does it require you to take him to the doctor, well, the non-parent will do something different than the parent and the actual parent in that situation is likely to do something different. 

But ... a bit of data is better than nothing.﻿
Of course they are creating a biased loop - that was one of the earliest points raised when G started pushing Brands all those years ago.
Worse, G create the culture that expects it, then states that people expect it as justification (self fulfilling prophecy etc.)

More on topic of the long-click ... we seriously need to figure some questions with careful phrasing to nail a Googler with to get public admittance on this stuff, as they've been avoiding it for far to long.﻿
that's like trying to nail jello on the wall +Lyndon NA--if they don't want us to know, they'll figure out a way out of it. :)﻿
AJ Kohn
I'm rather confident in the long click theory and terminology. You might not see it in writing but it's used in conversation. ﻿
+AJ Kohn: That and Amit has mentioned it for use on a page to page basis (should be on page one or page two of the SERPs).﻿
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