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Thread: Why do google all of a sudden put high value on social signals.?

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    Bronze Member dfsa's Avatar
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    This topic stated a interesting debate and went off topic from the original thread.

    I feel Google is busy with a long term strategy to gain some advertisers back from facebook, therefore their sudden strong change in giving more link juice to social signals.

    Why do goolge all of a sudden put high value on social signals.? This would be a good debate.
    Last edited by Dave A; 26-Jun-12 at 02:51 PM. Reason: re-ordering

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    Email problem Rod's Avatar
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    Why do google all of a sudden put high value on social signals.?

    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    An interesting TOPIC would be: Why do goolge all of a sudden put high value on social signals.? This would be a good debate.
    It makes sense that social links and signals are of high value now days. Firstly most social links are not permanent. This would require constant social engagement every day to create a constant flow of inbound social links. Google would value this since you cannot just place a link forever and leave it at that.

    Secondly in todays world, social media networking is massive. There are millions of people using social media platforms today. People respond better to a 'friends' recommendation of a website or product as opposed to other reviews available online. This means that a social link is much more valuable since it is most likely a valued review by a genuine person, not link spammed 2 years ago.

    I hope this makes sense.

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    Bronze Member dfsa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rod View Post
    It makes sense that social links and signals are of high value now days. Firstly most social links are not permanent. This would require constant social engagement every day to create a constant flow of inbound social links. Google would value this since you cannot just place a link forever and leave it at that.

    Secondly in todays world, social media networking is massive. There are millions of people using social media platforms today. People respond better to a 'friends' recommendation of a website or product as opposed to other reviews available online. This means that a social link is much more valuable since it is most likely a valued review by a genuine person, not link spammed 2 years ago.

    I hope this makes sense.
    Yes sure that make sense. Remember this is Google that we talk about. Why would they want to use social signals. They would want you to think as you just mentioned. In real terms google do not like Facebook as facebook are now very close to surpass them on traffic. Google tryed to buy facebook and the answer was no. When Youtube became a threat to google, they were bought out.

    Now google can not just go and not take facebook out their serp model they will be sued. They are now looking to strengthen their own social platform. G+. It is all about keeping their advertisers and not loose them to Facebook

    This is just a view, think about the real reason why!

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    An interesting TOPIC would be: Why do goolge all of a sudden put high value on social signals.? This would be a good debate.
    I don't think it's anything "sudden" - Google has always paid close attention to social media links. And for good reason, for the most part they're generated by real people.

    The original Google strategy was to lean into people's behaviour on the net to learn what was important and what wasn't. Ultimately the power of that principle hasn't changed - they just have to work harder to seperate genuine user generated content from link stuffing activities.

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    Bronze Member dfsa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
    I don't think it's anything "sudden" - Google has always paid close attention to social media links. And for good reason, for the most part they're generated by real people.

    The original Google strategy was to lean into people's behaviour on the net to learn what was important and what wasn't. Ultimately the power of that principle hasn't changed - they just have to work harder to seperate genuine user generated content from link stuffing activities.
    Yes it was always part of link diversity, and had a good standing. Now by putting more value, and seeing what they do in the back ground, then it sort off give an where they are heading. Social activity is extremely powerfull. G is loosing big advertisers to facebook. They can not get facebook so now they start with a long term strategy ( We will not know what exactly their goal is, but for now facebook will love it) Google did not become this powerfull because they are everybody's friend. It is a business and they loose money.

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    Email problem Rod's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    In real terms google do not like Facebook as facebook are now very close to surpass them on traffic.
    I know it's just a view, but I don't think Google are going to not count Facebook links just to spite them. Facebook provides a genuine source of relevant links and Google needs Facebook as a source

    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    They are now looking to strengthen their own social platform. G+. It is all about keeping their advertisers and not loose them to Facebook
    I agree with that though. Google wants more people to engage using G+, so openly saying that G+ give stronger social links, would definitely increase use of G+. I'm not sure if they have mentioned that in any press relases but it would certainly help.

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    Email problem Rod's Avatar
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    Although Google puts strong value on social links, I suppose we cannot assume that they will put even stronger value on G+ links. But we must also remember that this is Google's 4th attempt at a social media platform (1st Google Wave, 2nd Orchid, 3rd Google Buzz, and now it's Google+ ). They must have some sort of plan of action to get G+ off the ground and I believe it will be with the use of the SEO industry. This is just hypothetical though.

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    Bronze Member dfsa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rod View Post
    I know it's just a view, but I don't think Google are going to not count Facebook links just to spite them. Facebook provides a genuine source of relevant links and Google needs Facebook as a source



    I agree with that though. Google wants more people to engage using G+, so openly saying that G+ give stronger social links, would definitely increase use of G+. I'm not sure if they have mentioned that in any press relases but it would certainly help.
    G is not looking to spite facebook, they are looking to get their advertisers back. They might end up in court if they give stronger juice to their own signals.

    See if you agree with my thinking here: We know they bought youtube because they were loosing traffic and advertisers. They simply bought them out.

    This was a tactic google did slowly over a few years. IN the SERP'S you all know we fight to get our sites in the top Three positions. Right! Now google looked at this and thought, damn we give this traffic away for free ( The top Three positions take 60-70% of the traffic for the keyword) Now all of a sudden google make those three positions available to their advertisers. Was it fair, hell no it was not fair, but who is actually going to take them to court. ( Google is a free search engine and they state if you have a good quality site, you rank top.) If people do not submit their sites for inclusion, google will not exist. Now they simply move your site to spot 4, and not the top spot. Before their advertisers had the right pane to advertise their sites.

    Why would google have a problem with facebook: The biggest way to guage this is a few Year ago advertisers in the US would pay $US50 - $US100+ per click for certain highly competitive keywords. Now those same keywords are maybe $US20 - $US40. The reason, advertisers are spending less money now as they have moved their other end of the budget to facebook. Some even moved their biggest portion of their budget over.

    Google have been trying to buy facebook for a long time, but Mark is not interested. The stats that was released end last Year showed that facebook now are very close to google on total traffic. Imagine this. The billions of searches that google get per day. Facebook are still growing and migh go past them in the next Year or Two.

    The exact method that google are going to go about to get those lost visitors and advertisers back, well nobody know, but for sure google are not going to help facebook taking more away. They have to be very tactfull in how they do it. Facebook have the means to take them to court on the smallest infringement.

    So by giving link juice to social signals, they are only starting. Somewhere they are going to have a strategy that they can stand up on in case they get legally challanged.

    Yahoo was much bigger than google, but google out meneuvered them, with staying ahead. Yahoo mail, made good money, but google then started Gmail with a few different twists. Now Gmail is also bigger than Yahoo.

    Do you really think Google give prefrence to social link juice just becuase it is the fastest growing trend in the last few Years. No I don't think so, cause then google will become a charity. It is all business that fight for advertisers to spend money with them.

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    Bronze Member dfsa's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rod View Post
    Although Google puts strong value on social links, I suppose we cannot assume that they will put even stronger value on G+ links. But we must also remember that this is Google's 4th attempt at a social media platform (1st Google Wave, 2nd Orchid, 3rd Google Buzz, and now it's Google+ ). They must have some sort of plan of action to get G+ off the ground and I believe it will be with the use of the SEO industry. This is just hypothetical though.
    That is exactly what I think. They do have a plan of action. They have tryed to get Gmail users socially active, but I don't think they are happy with the results so far

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    Email problem Rod's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    G is not looking to spite facebook, they are looking to get their advertisers back.
    I understand that, but what I meant was that Google won't stop using Facebook as a source of relevant links. I'm not too sure about this but I don't think Facebook Ads count as do-follow links.

    Quote Originally Posted by dfsa View Post
    This was a tactic google did slowly over a few years. IN the SERP'S you all know we fight to get our sites in the top Three positions. Right! Now google looked at this and thought, damn we give this traffic away for free ( The top Three positions take 60-70% of the traffic for the keyword) Now all of a sudden google make those three positions available to their advertisers. Was it fair, hell no it was not fair, but who is actually going to take them to court.
    No one could sue them in any case. There are still 10 results on the first page, not including the featured results. As the owner of a search engine, you can display your results anywhere on the page. The truth of the matter is you don't pay anything to Google with regards to your organic listing, so they don't even have to index you if they don't feel like it. They are doing your website a favor by listing you. As for paying advertisers, they have to be guaranteed a place since they pay for those positions.

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