Sounds like you're implying that they are using Google Analytics to feed their ranking, but that's much easier to game than links are. User-signals on SERP clic

Sounds like you're implying that they are using Google Analytics to feed their ranking, but that's much easier to game than links are. User-signals on SERP clicks? There's a niche industry supplying those to SEOs (I've seen it a few times, I haven't seen it have any reliable impact).