Google hating on Social Signals... or lying?

[bartosimpsonio]

I have one question, what are social signals?

Nice car, big house, swimming pool and hair like Trump.

 

[tb303]

If google were to take into account social signals they would need access to an external API. That API is going to get a shit ton of traffic so Facebook or whoever are going to want a nice chunk of money for access.

Without that api info all they have is what their spiders can crawl so you're back to a nofollow link on a page with very little content. G+ is obviously different but apparently doomed anyway.

That said, did I read somewhere recently that twitter/google had done a deal for tweets to appear in the SERP's ? Some cash changed hands there?

 

[Panther28]

I have one question, what are social signals?

Its when you piss against a lamp post to mark your territory.

 

[mickyfu]

Its when you piss against a lamp post to mark your territory.

I normally do this so that I can trace my way back to the last pub the morning after, in case I leave my phone or wallet there.

 

[ThopHayt]

Do you really think Google is too nice to use this to play hard ball? You realize they are now showing Twitter tweets in results, right? So they CLEARLY are highly aware of signals. But hell will probably freeze over before they give Facebook such a bold treatment. I think the question we should start asking is if Facebook shares/likes are worth piss anymore.

 

[apptru]

It will add some signals as part of my SEO strategy anyway... it is just natural things to do.

 

[kyescontent]

I'm curious about the real answer to this question as well, though no matter what it is, social signals can help with link-building and traffic. So directly or indirectly, they can help boost your SEO value.

 

[SocialPusher]

Always getting to this question. When you start to trust what google says, you won`t have the best time. Social signals do impact rankings as many tests have proven. Check moz`s latest, if you don`t believe

 

[rogerke]

I belief Google is right on this... social signals is not a ranking factor, it is to easy to manipulate like most metrics SEO's and webmasters think have a major affect on their rankings

However..... That being said....

I do belief that there is a red flag if you have 1000 quality links and no shares or/and tweets to speak of, so i belief -because it makes the most sense in my opinion- that Google is using social signals as a way to validate your links, i have no real hard data on this hypothesis, as i find it hard to come up with a full proof test, and come to conclusion (because of all the variables) but it makes so much sense that i am going with it, if it isn't the case then no harm is done anyway.

Google has way more sophisticated ways to validate your links. As you said social signals are easily manipulated, so if they don't cause a direct ranking boost it doesn't make sense to use them a "link validator" either.

 

[fc-dh]

Google has way more sophisticated ways to validate your links. .

Really, name one

 

[rogerke]

Really, name one

Besides the obvious fact that the entire Penguin algoritm revolves around detecting valid links you should read this: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...ALL&S1=08682892&OS=PN/08682892&RS=PN/08682892

Up to you to find out what it means, but from my testing that's the single biggest current ranking factor and practically no SEO has a clue.

 

[fc-dh]

That is to way much text in unreadable form, can you give a rundown please

Also the so called penguin updates are 10% update and 90% propaganda, and that is what i have found from my testing, all old stuff still works just need a little twist to make it work, but all these WF/MOZ/SEL people that have flooded BHW rather belief the propaganda that Google spouts then to take the time to test and discover that 90% of what they claim true their propaganda mouthpieces like MOZ and SEL (Searchengineland) isn't true at all. Sure Google are getting better at detecting spam but they are nowhere near the capacity that they claim, just test it, you'll see i am right.

 

[rogerke]

That is to way much text in unreadable form, can you give a rundown please

Also the so called penguin updates are 10% update and 90% propaganda, and that is what i have found from my testing, all old stuff still works just need a little twist to make it work, but all these WF/MOZ/SEL people that have flooded BHW rather belief the propaganda that Google spouts then to take the time to test and discover that 90% of what they claim true their propaganda mouthpieces like MOZ and SEL (Searchengineland) isn't true at all. Sure Google are getting better at detecting spam but they are nowhere near the capacity that they claim, just test it, you'll see i am right.

Here's a laymen explanation (although I think they have it wrong by describing is as "the Panda Patent" just because Navneet Panda came up with it).http://penaltypros.com/google-panda-patent-explained/ Basically it describes creating a ratio with a site's inbound links and reference queries, which they then use to create a sitewide modification factor, which is then use to create a page modification factor to rank your pages.

So basically it describes using specific signals to validate your links. Although this patent describes reference queries, later patents describe user metrics like CTR and dwell time and also mention using click fraud detection techniques to filter out spammers. They don't need unreliable social signals when they have direct and hard to manipulate metrics like these. I bet you've seen numerous sites ranking very well (especially after July 2014) with basically no link equity and no hidden blackhat techniques. I have very strong reasons to believe this is why.

Regarding Penguin, I tend to both agree and disagree, old methods don't work nearly as well as they used to, although I agree some twists can be made to slip through the spam algorithms. Case in point: some guy ranking the entire page 1 of a very competitive keyword with custom GSA engines.

 

[physicaladdict]

From my experience when I got more G+ shares, I got more views and was also featured on google news. Google is obviously going to favor their own works over other companies.