{"id":1536,"date":"2010-12-07T11:46:36","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T09:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.webseoanalytics.com\/blog\/?p=1536"},"modified":"2010-12-07T11:46:36","modified_gmt":"2010-12-07T09:46:36","slug":"twitter-facebook-links-affect-seo-on-google-and-bing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.webseoanalytics.com\/blog\/twitter-facebook-links-affect-seo-on-google-and-bing\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter & Facebook links affect SEO on Google and Bing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"twitter-bing-facebook-google2\"Few days ago Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, published a very interesting article which confirms the suspicions of many SEOs: Social Media buzz does affect<\/strong> the organic rankings of Google and Bing.<\/p>\n

As we recommended in a previous article \u201cHow to Speed up Search Engine Indexing<\/a>\u201d, social media links can help you speed up your website\u2019s indexing and they are taken into account by Search Engines even if they are nofollowed. Certainly social media buzz could serve as a great signal for search engines but the main question is does it actually affect directly<\/strong> the rankings?<\/p>\n

In the short interview<\/a>, Danny Sullivan asks whether the data that come from Twitter and Facebook are used as a signal and whether they affect the regular<\/strong> search results. Both Google and Bing answered that not only they do<\/strong> take them into account but also, as expected, they try to evaluate the authority<\/strong> of the author and the quality<\/strong> of the post.<\/p>\n

Below you will find the hottest questions that have been answered form this interview along with the replies of each Search Engine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nGoogle<\/td>\nBing<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Are Regular Search Results affected by social media buzz?<\/td>\nYes. It is used as a signal especially for news.<\/td>\nYes it is a signal. Some weight is passed and regular results are affected.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Are Social\/Realtime Search Results affected by buzz?<\/td>\nHeavily affected<\/td>\nHeavily affected, Authority metrics are used to determine the hot posts.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Are Twitter links taken into account (aka do they pass link juice)?<\/td>\nIn some limited situations the data are used.<\/td>\nThe data are used. The weight depends on how often a link is posted, the number of tweets & retweets and the authority of the people that post it.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Are Facebook links taken into account?<\/td>\nThe shared links from Fan pages are treated similarly to Twitter links. No links from personal walls are used.<\/td>\nOnly the publicly shared links from Fan pages and Profiles are taken into account.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Is there an Authority Rank for Twitter Profiles?<\/td>\nYes, the author quality is measured. Google calls this Author Authority.<\/td>\nYes. Several metrics are taken into account. Bing calls this Social Authority.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Is there an Authority Rank for Facebook Profiles?<\/td>\nThey are treated similarly to Twitter Profiles.<\/p>\n

Note: Normally if this is true, they measure only public profiles like Fan pages.<\/td>\n

No. They take into account only the Facebook data that are publicly available.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Does the Twitter Authority have an impact on the weight of the links that are shared?<\/td>\nYes. The weight depends on the authority of the person. The Author Authority is used in limited situations and it is independent of PageRank.<\/td>\nThe Author Authority affects the link weight.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Does the Facebook Authority have an impact on the weight of the links that are shared?<\/td>\nSimilarly to Twitter. The weight of each link depends on the authority of the profile.<\/td>\nThey don\u2019t use Facebook authority. Instead in order to find if something is really popular they compare Twitter & Facebook shares.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So how do Google and Bing evaluate the Social Media Buzz?<\/h2>\n

First of all let\u2019s stress<\/strong> that you should not focus only on Social Media. The fact that the buzz does affect the rankings does not mean that it became the most important ranking factor. In fact both search engines made it clear that the effects from buzz are still limited<\/strong> and that they do lots of calculations to filter out spam.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, since our suspicions are confirmed, we can easily speculate what are the key factors<\/strong> that are used by Search Engines when they evaluate Social Media Buzz. Their main target is to filter out the spam, to evaluate the trust and the weight of the links, to ensure that a page is indeed popular, to find the authority of each author and to get a clue about the topic or theme of the post.<\/p>\n

\"socialmedia-connections\"<\/div>\n

Below you can find a list of factors that are most likely to affect the authority<\/strong> and the trust<\/strong> of the social media links. Please note that the below factors are not officially confirmed by Search Engines, but most of them are already used by several web services & tools that evaluate Social Media popularity:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The number of Followers <\/strong>on Twitter<\/li>\n
  2. The number of Fans <\/strong>on Facebook Fan Pages<\/li>\n
  3. The number of tweets & RT<\/strong>s on Twitter<\/li>\n
  4. The number of Shares & Likes<\/strong> on Facebook<\/li>\n
  5. The ratio <\/strong>between Followers-Friends<\/li>\n
  6. The authority <\/strong>of the people that follow you<\/li>\n
  7. The authority <\/strong>of the people that share your content<\/li>\n
  8. The average quality<\/strong> of your previously shared messages<\/li>\n
  9. The number of unique mentions<\/strong>\/shares (similar to Link Diversity)<\/li>\n
  10. The rate <\/strong>and the source <\/strong>of links that you share<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Moreover search engines are expected to use Social Media buzz to determine:<\/p>\n