it's been said (also by google) that they count the clicks on the results page. for instance, if someone looks for something, and chooses the second result, then google keeps track of it in a database. I've looked at the html source of a result page on google and noticed that the link to the results displayed is direct (not going through a script that keeps count). so my question is, how do they know on what result someone had just clicked?
JS event script attached to each result. When you click it sends a small response home tracking that click. Check the code yourself if you want to see the event attached to each anchor.
May I have an official reference from Google stating they count the clicks from result page? I believe that search engines do not use this as part of their ranking algo as this is too abusive..
I'm not sure if there is any official statement from Google about it, but there is sometimes JS 'tracking' script on SERPs and there is patents about that. 20 Ways Search Engines May Rerank Search Results (point 15)
google use "google adbots" to track the result of clicks and google adsense, adwords related products. It's better to know more about google adbots....
ophir.oren is talking about click tracking on search results pages. And what is adbots, the mediapartner (AdSense) bot ? How a bot could track clicks
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1498959948416769897 this is a movie done about google. they interview some google executives there. as long as the VP. at some point she admits it.