In the fast-evolving world of SEO, focusing on the wrong metrics can mislead teams and waste resources.
This BoostMyDomain article gathers insights from business leaders and digital growth professionals on one vanity metric they steer clear of, despite the hype.
From pageviews to Domain Authority and AI Overview rankings, these experts reveal why such metrics often fail to drive meaningful outcomes.
Instead, they emphasize actionable metrics like conversion rates, user engagement, and keyword relevance, offering strategies to prioritize business impact over superficial wins in today’s competitive digital landscape.
Read on!
Pageviews Are A Vanity Metric To Avoid
A vanity metric I avoid is “pageviews.” While it might feel good to see high numbers, pageviews alone don’t tell you if visitors are engaging with your content or converting. A site can have thousands of pageviews but still fail to generate meaningful business results.
Instead of fixating on pageviews, it’s more useful to look at metrics like average session duration, bounce rate and conversion rates. These give a clearer picture of whether your content resonates with the right audience and encourages action.
Focusing on engagement and outcomes rather than raw traffic helps SEO teams prioritise improvements that drive real value. Vanity numbers like pageviews can be misleading and waste time if they aren’t connected to your broader goals.
Regan Black
Founder & CEO, GuestCam
Crawl Efficiency Trumps Crawl Frequency
We avoid placing too much importance on how often Google crawls a site. Many teams assume frequent crawling means better rankings, but that is not always true. What truly matters is how efficiently Google crawls the site.
Instead of obsessing over crawl frequency, we prioritize a strong internal linking structure, keeping content fresh and relevant, and making sure the crawl budget is spent wisely.
These factors help Google discover and index important pages effectively, which has a more meaningful impact on SEO performance than crawl frequency alone.
Social Signals are Not SEO Wins
We no longer count social signals as an SEO win. While likes, shares, and follows from SEO-driven content seem like progress, they do not significantly influence search visibility. These metrics can be misleading and often give a false success.
Instead, we focus on content that increases time on site and boosts internal link engagement. These factors contribute more directly to organic growth.
We ensure our SEO efforts deliver measurable results by tracking what drives user interaction and keeps visitors engaged.
Marc Bishop
Director of Business Growth, Wytlabs
Domain Authority is a Vanity Metric
Vanity Metric to Avoid: Domain Authority (DA)
While DA looks impressive on reports, I caution clients not to obsess over it. It’s a third-party metric not a Google ranking factor.
High DA doesn’t always mean high visibility or conversions. I’ve seen pages on low DA sites outrank big players simply because their content matched search intent better. Focus on relevance, E-E-A-T, and user value not arbitrary scores.
Amit Rajdev
CEO & Founder, Devotion Commerce
CTR Is No Longer a Core Metric
Click through rate might be something that still gets the same amount of hype it once deserved years ago. There are so many things changing with organic visibility now that CTR has sort of become a lost metric. Or at least a metric that you can hang your hat on at the end of the day.
With the introduction of AI search options and how they present results, the CTR can dive quickly, but that does not indicate poor “organic” performance.
SEO basics are still a thing to consider, but CTR might be something you push a little further down the priority list.
John Sukowaty
Senior SEO Strategist, SUKOSEO
AI Overview Rankings are a Vanity Metric
As of mid-2025, the biggest vanity metric in SEO is rankings within AI Overviews as reported by rank tracker tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs.
The specific information and the sources cited in an AI Overview can change drastically, sometimes even from hour to hour. This means you might see your content ranked #1 as an AI Overview for a set of high-priority keywords one day, only to find it’s gone 24 hours later, or even just an hour later.
Unless you are tracking this data over an extended period, a temporary feature in an AI Overview can give a misleading sense of success when, in reality, rankings often normalize quickly.
True success in SEO, especially in the AI era, comes from building exceptional educational content that offers unique insights and nuance, clear brand positioning, and strong authority through quality backlinks and content.
Pat Ahern
Partner & Growth Strategist, Intergrowth
Vanity Metrics Lead to Empty Success
Domain Authority (DA) looks shiny on a slide-deck, but it’s basically a made-up score that guesses how “strong” a site might be. Google never sees it and, worse, you can crank DA up with a few dodgy backlinks – traffic may climb yet sales don’t budge.
(Same thing with bounce rate, by the way: GA4 parked it because high or low bounces can each mean success or failure…no help at all.)
I keep our board laser-fixed on numbers that move the till: qualified leads, revenue, repeat customers. Traffic’s nice, but conversions are the bit that pays Friday beers.
Steer clear of vanity graphs and you won’t lose sleep when the next “DA-90” competitor pops up.
Isaac Bullen
Marketing Director, 3WH
Page Views are a Vanity Metric
One vanity metric in SEO I always avoid is page views.
While it’s easy to feel encouraged by a high number of views, they rarely convert into meaningful interactions or sales, especially in the forex and trading sector.
As a seasoned Sales and Marketing Director and currently the CEO of TradingFXVPS, I’ve discovered the importance of valuing quality over volume. Rather than focusing on views, I prioritize statistics like click-through rates (CTR), conversion percentages, and user activity that align with real business outcomes.
For example, in our field, a smaller audience of highly engaged traders visiting our platform has a far greater impact than thousands of irrelevant views.
My team’s commitment to building precise campaigns has allowed us to connect with niche markets, enhancing both client acquisition and loyalty.
At TradingFXVPS, relying on informed strategies has consistently delivered clear results, proving that not every metric deserves the same level of attention.
Ace Zhuo
Business Development Director, Trading FXVPS
Domain Authority is a Vanity Metric
I steer clear of focusing too heavily on domain authority (DA) as a primary SEO metric. While DA can provide a general sense of website strength, it’s easily manipulated and doesn’t always correlate with actual search rankings or organic traffic performance.
Many SEO teams get caught up chasing higher DA scores, often through questionable link-building tactics that can be detrimental long-term. I’ve seen businesses waste significant resources pursuing DA improvements that don’t translate to meaningful business results.
Instead, I focus on metrics that directly impact revenue and ROI: keyword rankings for terms that actually drive business, organic traffic volume and quality, conversion rates from organic visitors, and ultimately, customer acquisition cost from SEO efforts. These provide a much clearer picture of whether your SEO strategy is actually working.
For example, a website with DA 30 that ranks well for high-intent commercial keywords and converts visitors into customers is infinitely more valuable than a DA 60 site that gets traffic for irrelevant terms that don’t convert.
The key is tracking metrics that connect directly to business outcomes rather than vanity metrics that look impressive but don’t move the needle on revenue. DA can be part of your monitoring, but it should never be the primary goal or success measure for your SEO efforts.
Jayson DeMers
Founder, Email Analytics
On behalf of the BoostMyDomain community of readers, we thank these leaders and experts for taking the time to share valuable insights that stem from years of experience and in-depth expertise in their respective niches.
BoostMyDomain invites you to share your insights and contribute to our authoritative publication. Reach a wider audience, build your credibility, and establish yourself as a thought leader in an industry that caters to every business with an online presence!
