Blog : Social Media and Search Engine Rankings
Google and Bing Confirm that Twitter/Facebook Influence Search Engine Ranking
(Hat Tip to
Michael Warf for finding this article.)
Recently, both Bing and Google have
confirmed that links shared through social media such as Facebook and Twitter have a direct impact on search engine result rankings. Here are some of the highlights of what has now been confirmed, and why you need to care.
When deciding how to rank a social media link, Bing and Google look at the "social authority" of the person who is posting. This means: how many follow the and how many people they in turn follow. This adds to the value of a link in both search engines, but especially on
Bing Social.
Other factors that are important to the search engines when indexing social media content:
- Diversity of Sources - having 50 tweets of a link from one account, like having 50 links from one site, is not nearly as valuable as 50 tweets from 50 unique accounts.
- Author authority - links from celebrities and widely followed users carry more value.
- Timing - sharing that occurs when an RSS feed first publishes a story may be valuable, but tweets/shares and re-tweets of older pieces could be seen as more indicative of lasting value, and therefore value (rather than just sharing what's new).
- Surrounding Content - especially on Twitter, the content (messages) that go with the link are important.
- Engagement Level - the quantity of clicks, re-Tweets, likes, etc., likely affects how much weight is given to a link.
The simplified lesson from this is that as always, quality content is king. It's important not only to generate a high amount of content, but make sure that it is valuable and helpful. Social media is another tool to help distribute your content - it is a tactic, not a strategy. But it will help ensure that the major search engines view you and your website as authoritative experts on your chosen field. So keep on blogging!
Update: Google has also posted the following
video to confirm that social media does factor into their search results.