Social Factors Affecting Search Engine Rankings

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In this video filmed in Dec 2010 Matt Cutts confirms that Google uses social factors such as twitter links when ranking websites.

Here is a very useful interview (held by Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land) with Bing and Google. Bing’s replies are paraphrased from a phone interview and Google’s are from the email replies Danny received form them.

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1) If an article is retweeted or referenced much in Twitter, do you count that as a signal outside of finding any non-nofollowed links that may naturally result from it?
Bing:
We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results. It carries much more weight in Bing Social Search, where tweets from more authoritative people will flow to the top when best match relevancy is used.

Google:
Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and news rankings. We also use it to enhance our news universal by marking how many people shared an article.

2) Do you try to calculate the authority of someone who tweets that might be assigned to their Twitter page. Do you try to “know,” if you will, who they are?

Bing:
Yes. We do calculate the authority of someone who tweets. For known public figures or publishers, we do associate them with who they are. (For example, query for Danny Sullivan)

Google:
Yes we do compute and use author quality. We don’t know who anyone is in real life

3) Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Bing:
Yes.

Google:
Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search.

4) Do you track links shared within Facebook, either through personal walls or fan pages?

Bing:
Yes. We look at links shared that are marked as “Everyone,” and links shared from Facebook fan pages.

Google:
We treat links shared on Facebook fan pages the same as we treat tweeted links. We have no personal wall data from Facebook.

5) Do you try to calculate the authority of someone on Facebook, either say via their personal wall or their fan page.

Bing:
We don’t do this on Facebook. On Facebook, we only get what’s public, only updates and things you’ve posted to everyone as viewable. We don’t get things only shared with friends, so we don’t know how authoritative you are on Facebook. There isn’t the whole convenient retweet mechanism we see on Twitter.
We do see valuable content shared by Facebook users, even though we only get what’s public. For example when Gary Coleman died we saw a video from Different Strokes, saying his favorite line “what ya talk’in ’bout Willis” gain popularity. It happened to be what a lot of people are sharing on the day he passed away.

Google:
Again, the treatment is the same as for Twitter. And we have no personal wall data from Facebook.

6) Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who shared it on Facebook?

Bing:
We can tell if something is of quality on Facbook by leveraging Twitter. If the same link is shared in both places, it’s more likely to be legitimate.

Google:
Same as question 5.

7) And just to be really clear, the new Facebook data is not yet being used in ordinary web search, right? (asked only of Bing, because it was only relevant to them)

No.

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Many SEOs have speculated over the value of of Twitter and Facebook links for rankings and now it is confirmed. Here are the major takeaways:

Importance of Twitter Account Authority

This seems like a good way for Bing and Google to prevent spammers hitting Twitter with links in order to get “social juice” to boost rankings. Both search giants take into consideration the authority of twitter users who send out links i.e. number and types of people that follow and the number and types of people followed. Bing further confirms that for known public figures they associate the accounts with who they are.

Facebook Links are Valuable Just Like Twitter Links

Both Bing and Google use link data from Facebook to help with their rankings as well. This refers to links shared to everyone and links shared on Facebook fanpages. However at this stage it doesn’t seem as though anyone takes into consideration authority of accounts on Facebook.

Frequency of Links Shared and Tweeted

It is confirmed that the frequency of links being shared and tweeted is another ranking factor. The more times your links are being shared or re-tweeted the high perceived quality and importance it has according to the search engines. This means only one thing – make your content so “shareable” that people will “need” to share and re-tweet it. Make your content so valuable and so interesting that people will want to show their friends. It is no longer about creating linkable content, it is all about “likeable” content.

The whole concept of social links influencing SEO reinforces the value of social media. Social and user activity i.e. click streaming are being used as search engine ranking factors as we move into 2011 and my bet is their weight will only grow stronger. It is important to provide high value content and engage at a very high level on social sites like Facebook and Twitter. Two tips in light of the information above to use social links to improve rankings include:

1) Create unbelievable content that high authority Twitter and Facebook users will share, like, tweet and retweet your links/content. Make sure your content is “Likeable” and “Re-Tweetable”.

2) Engage and interact at a high level on Twitter to make yourself a high authority Twitter user.

Twitter and Facebook is very much like the NASCAR. The cars keep racing around and around and different people see different parts of the race each time but there is always someone watching so take the opportunity to show the great content you have, your great customer service and your genuine willingness to help.