How Does Google Rate Links From Facebook & Twitter?
Matt Cutts recently posted a video, where he answers concerns about the relevance of links coming from social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.
The video was in response to the question:
“Links from relevant and important sites have always been a great way to get traffic & acceptance for a website. How do you rate links from new platforms like Twitter, FB to a website?”
Links, whether they are from social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter or from regular websites... Google treats them just the same. In fact, it is just an extension of the PageRank technology at work where what matters is not the quantity of backlinks but the quality thereof! I have already written about how Google ranks tweets in its Real Time Search.
Even though the linking strategy is the same, things are a little when it comes to Facebook and Twitter. Matt explains further...
Facebook comprises of a lot of Profiles, Fan Pages and Discussion Groups etc. Now, while some profiles are public, some are not. You need to keep this is mind. And when a profile is not public, you Google crawlers are unable to crawl the contents and therefore cannot assign PageRank to the outgoing links. Only when the page is public, can Google crawlers index the contents effectively and flow any PageRank whatsoever!
As far as Twitter is concerned, most links are no-followed anyway. So, all you can do is seek to make them feature in Google real-time search results.
So then, how to make sure Google indexes your Facebook contents?
Make your Content Available
Facebook recently launched new search privacy settings wherein it gives you an option to make your page contents public. There are 2 settings – Facebook Search Results allow you to be found by people searching on Facebook and Public Search Results let you be found by people searching within search engines. Here is what you need to go to make yourself available:
*
Visit your Search Privacy Settings page *
Turn Facebook Search Results to – Everyone *
Check the Public Search Results option
However, please note that in addition to maximizing exposure of your content, it will also make your general profile information public. So make sure you don't have any sensitive information in your profile that can cause potential damage.
Beware of Keywords
Now this is slightly tricky! Even though using relevant keywords in your updates makes sense... it can actually do more harm than good! Facebook is extremely sensitive to spam. So make sure you respect the basic nuances of the social platform and make your updates more conversational than keyword-oriented. Seek to be social.. and not anti-social spammer!
About the Author
Kabir Bedi is a senior web consultant at LeXolution IT Services, a professional web designing company located in India that specializes in providing a range of web design services and website maintenance services. Having been in the industry for over 10 years, he advises clients to build strong and profitable online presence for their businesses.
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