Facebook announced it has added a new ranking factor to its News Feed algorithm. In addition to likes, comments, and shares — Facebook will now take into account the time people spend with a piece of content.
Based on user feedback, Facebook has learned that content can still be meaningful even if people haven’t taken the time to like, share, or comment on a story.
“It’s not as simple as just measuring the number of seconds you spend on each story,” wrote Facebook software engineer Ansha Yu in a company blog post. “Some people may spend 10 seconds on a story because they really enjoy it, while others may spend 10 seconds on a story because they have a slow Internet connection.”
So if you spend a lot of time glancing over a News Feed post with photos from your sister’s wedding, say, Facebook now notices that, factors in how long the post is on your screen, and places any other photo-based posts from your sister higher up in your News Feed.
For Page owners, the company says you should not expect to see drastic changes in reach as a result of this update. This new algorithm signal has already started rolling out, and will continue to be rolled out over the coming weeks.
