Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets…
SEOMoz has posted another piece of anecdotal evidence linking tweets to rankings that must be taken with a grain of salt. I hate to continue to harp on this issue because I am still a big fan of SEOMoz, but the reality is that a tweet generating links is not a social signal.
The issue in question was that smashingmagazine.com tweeted out a recommendation for SEOMoz’s excellent beginner’s guide to SEO. I highly recommend you check it out. After the tweet, their guide shot to the front page for the keyword “Beginner’s Guide”. Unfortunately, it is far too easy to jump to the conclusion that the retweets and social weight of smashing magazine’s twitter profile were responsible for the jump.
What is the more likely culprit? A sitewide link from Smashing Magazine and Twitter Feeds syndicating the links on their own sites.
You see, Smashing Magazine keeps it’s twitter feed live on the side bar. Any of their latest tweets are included on nearly EVERY page of their 8700 page PR6 site.
More importantly, over 200 sites are STILL linking as of today to that bit.ly link because of syndicating their twitter feeds, follows or retweets on their own sites.
So, what is the take home? Twitter can be a great viral source for links NOT Google Rankings are significantly affected by the twitter social graph
No tags for this post.4 Comments
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- links for 2011-09-19 | Glenn Friesen - [...] Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets… | The Google Cache: Search Engine Marketing, SE... Twitter…
- links for 2011-09-20 | Glenn Friesen - [...] Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets… | The Google Cache: Search Engine Marketing, SE... Twitter…
- links for 2011-09-21 | Glenn Friesen - [...] Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets… | The Google Cache: Search Engine Marketing, SE... Twitter…
- links for 2011-09-22 | Glenn Friesen - [...] Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets… | The Google Cache: Search Engine Marketing, SE... Twitter…
- links for 2011-09-23 | Glenn Friesen - [...] Once Again, it is about the links, not the tweets… | The Google Cache: Search Engine Marketing, SE... Twitter…
- Why Tweet? - […] does suggest that the links found in Twitter do have an effect on your Google ranking. Of course, one…
Submit a Comment
Very interestsing. I suppose you can’t take anything at face value in the world of SEO!
It’s getting harder and harder…to take anything at face value. Thanks for the second opinion.
searchengineman
Nice analysis. It is a good example of the poor reliability of conclusions reached based on a sample size of one. Prior to reading your article, I jumped to the conclusion that Smashing Magazines ratio of 353,000 followers to 487 following must have give their tweets terrific authority. However, I on second thought, your conclusion seems more likely to be the correct on and that it was the links that were generated that produced the ranking.
Wonderful counterpoint and valid investigation.
I wonder how useful the distinction between models is, though (viral source for links VS. rankings being significantly affected by the social graph)…? Would the mechanics of either change the behavior of SEO’s pulling this lever? (I don’t think so).