Social Network Links VALUE

[shags38]

does anyone know if Google ranks links from social networks to your site in a similar manner to ranking other inbound links, i.e. by authority, similar topic content etc. In English, does a link from a Facebook page that has 150k followers (likes) have any ranking benefit as a link to my site compared to a link from an FB page that has 15 followers (likes) ??? (Topic / content is not valid)

I doubt that there would be any discrimination from "social" sites however I do not know for sure.

And before I get comments like "wtf" - "what do you want to know for" - "what does it matter anyway" or "leave this subject alone and get onto matters that really count" or similar ........ do not bother wasting the ink (personally I am tired of such comments in here) ..... you can either offer your considered opinion on the question or continue reading some other post - don't post crap responses, thank you (funny is ok )
(old Military saying ..... no names no courts martials - but you do know who I mean don't you )

cheers,
Mike

 

[davids]

This is purely my own speculation, but I'd think that they'd both have the same effect in terms of Google. However, in terms of traffic from click-throughs, obviously you want to be having your link on the 15k 'likes' one.

 

[soj]

Even then, can you see any pages that have the links without being logged into Facebook? If not then the links are absolutely useless for search engine authority

 

[DavidL]

I believe Google can't index FB pages and that's probably the only decent sized area of the internet that they don't have a handle on. Sure that causes them no end of frustration and you can bet they are lobbying FB to let their spiders in.

So upshot - I don't think the links deliver any link juice.... yet

 

[Timmy]

My webmaster tools shows over 300 links from social networking sites - whether they give any authority or not is another story but every ounce counts.

 

[shags38]

I believe Google can't index FB pages and that's probably the only decent sized area of the internet that they don't have a handle on. Sure that causes them no end of frustration and you can bet they are lobbying FB to let their spiders in.

So upshot - I don't think the links deliver any link juice.... yet

Very interesting David - so the hype about "having to be on FB" is mainly to do with traffic then. Some of the indescript stuff written about the advantages of being involved in social networking has been just that, indescript.

I am doing some intense link building for a site at the moment and targetting FB mainly because of some of the hype stuff I have read - your comments shed a different light on things - if they are not carrying a lot of juice then they are not all that valuable - thanks for the input, now I can get a few more hours sleep each night .

cheers,
Mike

 

[shags38]

My webmaster tools shows over 300 links from social networking sites - whether they give any authority or not is another story but every ounce counts.

I have 509 from FB to one of my sites and have been putting in the hours in FB for another couple of sites - David L's comments below are interesting.

thanks for the response.

cheers,
Mike

 

[shags38]

Even then, can you see any pages that have the links without being logged into Facebook? If not then the links are absolutely useless for search engine authority

SOJ - can you elaborate please. What do you mean by seeing them when not logged in to FB ??

As it is also with Timmys post, my Webmaster Tools shows the large volume of FB links so Google obviously recognizes them but what value do they put on them if anything??

There are gazillions of people / websites pasting links in all sorts of pages so either there is some value in it or the blind are following the blind (don't stumble or I'll bump into you from behind ) .... pass me my cane please ... sorry what was that? .... you can't see it, is that what you said??
Hey Bacon Farmer ...... reminds me of when I was in the Senior Service .... my duffle bag had a sign on it ..... "don't follow me, I'm lost too" (navigation was not my strength)

It is amazing how some pages (commercial businesses) have zero posts since the day they were launched and yet still have in some cases well over 100k "likes" ........ either some excellent likes "farming" after set up by the owners or there are a lot of lonely people out there that feel the need to be part of something even if that something is nothing ..... wish I could sell "likes" ..... .... anyone like to buy some likes ??


cheers,
Mike

 

[DavidL]

Well don't take my advice - esp if you and Timmy can see links through WMT

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/14/how-google-rates-links-from-facebook-and-twitter

The above suggests it depends on whether a profile is public or not...

 

[James]

Links from social media websites carry some weight for search engines yet in my opinion the original text links are still the best.

Another thing to notice is that most social websites have the rel no follow value added this shows that they are blocking some of the internal link juice, you just have to be smart and find ways to get do follow links from these big social websites.