I dont understand how social signals affect seo

[Lauriat]

Since i read that social signals are now very important in seo i got confused.
Website has social network buttons, people share, like, whatever. How can this aid in ranking of single keyword?
People share webpage and its content, but not particular keyword is being targeted.

Please help me to understand.

 

[seochris96]

I'll give you the short version:

Everything that's done on social networks gets indexed, and active accounts have better PR than non-active accounts. If active accounts are sharing or liking your posts, domain, etc, then there are more links coming from that social media portal to your domain, which Google can see, and thus it gives you better rankings.

FYI, that's not completely accurate, but that's basically the principle behind which it seems to work.

 

[bplumb]

Yup.

Just to add to Chris' post, the more people 'like' a page, the more visitors it will get/have received. Not only will more visitors help drive the results, but will add more likelihood that they may link to the website through other blogs/forums etc etc.

 

[Hermitt]

I also agree with Chris. I may add that i've read from many reliable sources.
When you post something on your site and people share it, Google's algorithm is notified. The more people who share in a shorter amount of time, the more Google pays attention to the site. Because these shares trigger a "viral" reaction to Google. Google knows that sites with lots of shares very quickly are most likely going viral. As a result, people will probably be Googling this exact content.
Therefore, it's in Google's best interest to put this content right at the top of page #1 for these search terms!

 

[Simas9]

According to my and other members tests social signals are overrated. It makes no difference for highly/medium competitive keywords. It also works best for social signal sellers.

Go with contextual backlinks.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

SEO has always been about artificially imitating website popularity. By building links, you emulate what people would do if they consider your website helpful on a certain subject. This concept is what the whole idea of SEO is based on.

These days, social networks are yet another place where people share content they like/agree with/find useful, making it a valued resource to evaluate the search engine results and rank them appropriately.

 

[YoungCeaser]

You could also use anchors for example in photo descriptions and or a embedded shares and that still counts like signal.

 

[BadyBoySEO]

I don't buy the whole social signals thing at all, be active on social networks but don't expect social signals to do move the world for you. I don't think Twitter and Facebook directly count for much at least in my personal experience playing around with social signals, though I keep active on both. Google+ seems a lot more important in my opinion. They may play a role but if they do its a limited one, social networks are great for traffic generation anyway so don't skimp on them.

 

[Laubster]

Signals is actually a perfect word for it. Google wants to deliver relevant results, and social likes and shares "signal" that the content on that page is relevant to the keywords on that page. It's more important on a domain level however, not for individual keywords/inner pages. Some people are getting way too caught up in social signals and all this BS. Create a FB, Twitter, G+ profile and YT page for your money site, tie all the profiles into your G+ page, throw up one post on each, then get back to building solid links. Relevant, high PR/PA/DA links are still the name of the SEO game. Don't get confused.

 

[myfault]

so if people using social exchange sites can this will be also count ?

 

[divok]

one of my sports blog has no seo ,no backlinks ,just one one twitter profile which is pr 3(don't know if it counts) . I regularly get 10-25 organic hits daily . Tough it's other thing the niche is completely competition free .
But it does point out that social signals have a huge value now.

 

[dinkish]

I utilize them for traffic and indexing. Most don't pass any link juice, and the only reason I'd put any credance in them effecting SERP's directly would be because Matt Cutts apparently just denied it being of any benefit.

 

[SkyrocketSEO]

Social signals = crap
well thought social media campaign = good

 

[john1444]

Some heavy traffic sites uses this to feature users page on their home page.

They assume the social signals coming means people love what you have and deem fit to be shared even more.

One of my client got is Slideshare post featured on first page after doing the signals for him.

 

[zebrahat]

Social signals = crap
well thought social media campaign = good

Agreed. The main reason Google has tried to incorporate social media within its ranking formula is, it leads to people thinking about it in terms of as additional factor in improving SEO traffic, instead of as an alternative form of traffic that can replace the IM obsession with ranking. If people catch on that they can get quality, organic traffic to their sites via a well thought social media campaign, with or without Google being involved, that's less of the web they can dominate. Can't lose market share or potential Adwords customers, now can we?

 

[mikpel]

Social signals for SEO are highly overrated IMO. Links from social media are nofollow anyway. I'm currently ranking a medium-high search term on 2nd place, 100k exact match and I don't even have social media buttons on my page!

Before my recent project I tried to be active on twitter/fb/pinterest etc and I put a lot of effort to build up my audience. I also tried to buy followers but it didn't work out either. Then I realised I get much more in return by just concentrating on regular link building so I just forgot the whole social media fuzz. I hate facebook anyway.


tl;dr: Social signals for SEO are a waste of time. If you really love facebook just use it to drive traffic to your site.

 

[EricEstate]

IMHO bplumb has it right. People sharing your content = good. People not sharing it = not good.