Ever since Eric Schmidt confirmed at LeWeb last year that social signals were being taken into consideration for SERPs, the SEO world has been rife with speculation and conjecture about the relative merits of social signals as compared to links. Some of the more excitable members of the industry even went so far as to declare the death of link-building as an SEO tool.
In a recent interview,
Google’s chief spam slayer, Matt Cutts, has attempted to dampen down the more extreme prognostications about the ascendency of social signals. Yes, social signals are being used to some extent, but the humble link still leads the way when it comes to determining SERP rankings, and it will for some years to come.
Social signals are signs of approval and relevance for content that originate from sharing and “liking”, “+1ing”, and tweeting. The problem with social signals is that they are not an entirely clear cut way of determining the quality and relevance of particular pages. Cutts himself has said that +1s aren’t the best quality signals out there. According to David Harry over at Search Engine Watch, social signals are more likely to be used as an indirect indicator of authority rather than a direct signal.
Social sharing
Social media is an easy medium to spam. Without other indicators, it’s hard to tell spam from legitimate content regarding social approval. However, social signals could be used differently. They could assign authority and trust ratings to people who share content. This would then allow the use of authoritative social media sources as a ranking signal. This is similar to how authoritative websites carry more link equity.
One key takeaway is this: avoid spamming on social media at all costs. Firstly, it’s a terrible social media marketing strategy. It’s destined to fail. Secondly, it will negatively impact any authority that might be associated with a social media account.
To be clear, social signals aren’t everything for SEO. However, they do have some impact. This impact will likely grow over time. It’s also key to see the difference. There are benefits of social media for general SEO. Then there are benefits for personalization and marketing. Regardless, even if social signals don’t matter much for general rankings, they are very important. They help drive traffic. They also build awareness, community, and engagement.
