Is Social Rank Dying Already?

There has been a lot of talk in the SEO Community about Social Rank

And some talk that it might die soon.

What Is "Social Rank"

As far as the SEO is concerned, social rank is the idea that Google, and other search engines, use social networking indicators in their ranking algorithms. If you get mentioned and linked to often, from social media profiles, this helps your site rank in the search engines.

Check out Danny Sullivan's Q&A session on this topic with Google and Bing representatives.

Do you calculate whether a link should carry more weight depending on the person who tweets it?

Yes we do use this as a signal, especially in the “Top links” section [of Google Realtime Search]. Author authority is independent of PageRank, but it is currently only used in limited situations in ordinary web search

Google intimate it's tied in with PageRank, which Danny also discusses.

To some degree, “humans” on the web have pages that already represent their authority.

For example, my Twitter page has a Google PageRank score of 7 out of 10, which is an above average degree of authority in Google’s link counting world. Things I link to from that page — via my tweets — potentially get more credit than things someone whose Twitter page has a lower PageRank score. (NOTE: PageRank scores for Twitter pages are much different if you’re logged in and may show higher scores. This seems to be a result of the new Twitter interface that has been introduced. I’ll be checking with Google and Twitter more about this, but I’d trust the “logged out” scores more).

Google is a vote counting engine, so it isn't surprising they count votes from social network sites. It should also come as no surprise Google uses Twitter to help determine interest in news events, as the Twitter platform lends itself to news. This will then flow through into their news ranking. There are also the indirect benefits i.e. the attention generates articles and commentary, which then link back to your site.

All links are valuable, because attention - human, spider, or both - travels along them. Google will always be interested in who is paying the most attention to what. If people are using social networks to do that, then that is where Google needs to be.

Of course, like search, Social Media it is open to abuse.

How To Do Blackhat Social Rank

Black or grey, here are a few of the more aggressive tactics in use:

  • Fake Profiles - auto gen an entire network of friends
  • Duplicate/Fake Content - plenty of auto-gen tools about that will make posts and requests on your behalf
  • Pay Important People To Tweet Your Link As Editorial - or put your link on their profile page
  • Buy Social Media Accounts

You might have spotted a few more.

The social services will, of course, combat any threat they deem detrimental to their business. Just like in search, the game will be never-ending, as the blackhats find holes in the system, and the engineers plug them. And just like times past in SEO, the ethical debate rears its head.

Is it morally "right" or "wrong" to use technique X, Y and Z?

All a bit silly, really. People will use a technique regardless of other people's ethical dilemmas, so long as it works. It's up to the social networks, and Google, to stop what they might consider abusive practices from working, or paying off.

And they will, although they've probably got their work cut out for them. It's one thing to look at a page about, say, fitness and determine the links running along the bottom for "ring tones", "bad credit loans" and "viagra" are likely dodgy, but another thing to look at profile activity and determine whether there is a human behind it.

Social media is evolving quickly, and it will take time to patch issues, both technically and culturally. So I'm sure the blackhats will be having fun for some time yet.

Personalized Social Recommendations

Google sometimes may list results from your "social circle" at the bottom of the organic search results. The good thing about these results is that most of the recommendations are fairly transparent & benign.

Bing is displaying Facebook like data & Blekko is pushing harder at integrating Facebook likes into their algorithm as well.

A "like" might have multiple meanings depending on who is doing it. Do the votes for this page "like" Google, PPCBlog, PPCBlog's explanation of Google, search in general, algorithms, SEO, infographics, technology, marketing, or ...?

In search there is a concept of stop-words, which are words that would not be counted much because they are so common they don't really tell you much about a piece of content. Some keywords (say mesothelioma) have a higher discrimination value than others (say the). A "like" it doesn't have a great discrimination value, largely because you don't know why someone liked something. The nuanced subtleties are lost without context. Something might be liked because it is clever, in-depth, correct, humorous, offensive, and incorrect - all at the same time! It all comes down to interpretation & perspective.

Some people will offer tips on "scaling your social footprint" and such, but the trade off is that on networks where relationships are reciprocal (like on Facebook) you can't add a friend without having that friend added to your account. Brands, on the other hand, can offer an endless array of discounts and promotions. If a search engine puts too much weight on likes then companies will simply run giveaways, contests, and pricing specials to collect votes.

"Likes" are so low effort they will be easily manipulated, even amongst real account holders. Over time these votes will be every bit as polluted as the link graph (or maybe moreso) because there are so many ways to influence people individually (click the below like button for $2 off your order, etc). Such offers might fall outside of the terms of service of some networks, but it is worth noting that when Google was promoting their reviews service they violated their own TOS.

In addition to likes being easy to manipulate, some flavors of social are heavily spammed because many people use the tools simply for reciprocal promotion. I likely have over 1,000 friends on Facebook & yet I have no idea who 90%+ of the people are. Am I recommending the stuff that some of those people recommend? An algorithm that assumes I am is likely leading people astray. And you might be friends with someone while knowing that their business life is quite shady when compared against their personal life (or the other way around). Are you endorsing everything a person does?

Further, anyone can invest in creating one piece of great content that scores tons of "likes" while operating in an exploitative manner elsewhere (and/or later). It is just like the wave of bulk unsolicited emails I get promoting 'non-profit' directories which one month later require 3 or 4 page scrolls to get past all the lead generation forms, while yet claiming to be non-profit. :D

And social networks decay over time:

  • Friendster lost out due to bad management, and MySpace the same.
  • GeoCities closed last year. Delicious has had an upswing in spam, and Yahoo! has it scheduled for sunset soon.
  • And even outside of those sorts of broad platform shifts, people change over time. Years ago I might have recommended working with someone like Patrick Gavin or Andy Hagans, but I wouldn't dare do so today. Likewise a particular tip or product might be exceptionally profitable for a period of time & then eventually decay to a near sure bet money loser. Opportunities do not last forever. Marketers must change with the markets. Other products might have undesirable side effects that later come to surface. Add in media based on more precise measurements & pageview chasing, and the conflicts between recommendations + media coverage will scare some folks into not participating. Associating recommendations with individuals will cause blowback as some of the seeds turn sour & people blame the person who recommended them to the person/product/service that screwed them over. The link graph allows those with undesirable reputations to slowly fade into obscurity, whereas old likes remain in place & can cause a social conflict years down the road.

Using Social Media For SEO Purposes

A link is a marker of attention.

Google will always want to count markers of attention. Blackhat trickery aside, in order to make social media work for you, and create side effects in terms of ranking, you should build both a presence in social media, and a craft messages that are likely to be spread by social media.

It's much like PR. Public Relations, as opposed to PageRank.

Start by defining your audience. Who do you know that talks to that audience? Try to get to know as many people as possible in your audience, especially the movers and shakers who already talk with them.

Get movers and shakers to spread your message. That may involve payment of some kind. Reciprocation, favor, cash, drugs, booze, hookers. Whatever works.

Joke.

Or - and this is probably the most effective path - craft a message so interesting, they'll find it hard not to spread.

Think about how you spin your message. Think in terms of benefit. How will the audience benefit from knowing this information? What is in it for them? What are they curious about? Feed their curiosity. Sometimes, it's not the message, but the way it is stated.

Plan ahead. Can you spin your message around a public event, like a holiday? Or a current event? Or a popular personality?

Get out and meet people face-to-face. People are much more likely to be receptive to your ideas if they really do know you.

But there is a danger in overthingking this stuff. A few well placed links to a site can still get you top ten in Google, even if you have no social media presence at all. Social media is just another string to the bow.

Published: December 17, 2010 by Aaron Wall in seo tips

Comments

December 17, 2010 - 6:11am

PeterD also helped write a lot of the above post. :)

chrishuntis
December 17, 2010 - 11:41am

IMO until google have their own social layer they're going to avoid putting too much weight on anything social...

...if they don't control the system then they're unable to manipulate it -- thus profit.

I think the social elements are mainly for perception purposes. They'd rather devalue the social graph (that they don't own).

There are large chunks of the web that are inappropriate for the social graph, for example who's going to tweet that they found a great place to buy penis enlargement pills? (excluding spammers)

Plus the lack of a barrier to entry for "voting" on social properties devalues the links. Vs the resources required to publish ones own website.

December 18, 2010 - 10:52am

Great point Chris. If it is centralized and Google doesn't own it, then them putting too much weight on it is just funneling ad Dollars elsewhere.

DKS404
December 17, 2010 - 2:07pm

Aaron, Thanks for the link mention. Much appreciated. I think you are right. With all the opportunities to manipulate 'social rank' I just don't see it playing a large roll in organic rankings.

Your instructions on using social media for 'PR' is definitely the route to go and any additional benefit that is gained by it is just a bonus.

- Nick LeRoy

JonahStein
December 17, 2010 - 4:31pm

Google is always looking for signals about what people are viewing online. Links, tweets, mentions; it doesn't matter as long as Google is detecting patterns. This is likely even true with nofollow links. If you get tweeted about and lots of people click on those tweets, you should see a boost in the value of that tweet.

Of course, this is still not going to be the difference between the top and bottom of page 1 for a competitive search any time soon.

Jonah

bookworm.seo
December 19, 2010 - 7:13pm

I don't agree with your following point, because the same is true about links: "If a search engine puts too much weight on likes then companies will simply run giveaways, contests, and pricing specials to collect votes."

Standard link advice: give product to bloggers, ask customers for links in order confirmation email, run a contest for publicity...

Nic Cohen
May 3, 2012 - 9:49am

Fortunately Googles Panda Update, which has left many SEO companies quaking in their boots wondering when their client’s sites will drop off the end of a cliff, has paved way for ethical link building (quoted by N Cohen from: kdweb.co.uk/blog/). As noted here already, we have no idea of how Google's Algorithm pattern actually works... but what we do know is currently the industry which is still rife with SEO cowboys has just had their rude awakening. In its continuing effort to improve the quality of content shown to searchers, Google as the majority of already know, recently de-indexed and penalised many websites associated with several high-profile Gray/Black-Hat SEO link-building services. Personnally up until now it has been difficult to identify rouge SEO link traders, so, thank you Google Panda!

May 3, 2012 - 2:59pm

...is it ethical that...

  • Google has a "get rich quick" ad category?
  • Google sold ads offering clearly illegal drugs for over a half-decade?
  • Google blends THEIR paid links (like the ones pushing illegal drugs) into the serps so well that users can't distinguish between them & organic results? (source)

Seems the SEOs are not the only folks playing cowboy.

December 20, 2010 - 5:14am

Getting clean straight links from unique domains is MUCH harder than getting a bunch of mentions on a viral social network. The barrier to running your own site is much higher than spending the 40 seconds it takes to set up a Twitter account.

Viewing social votes akin to links from unique domains is almost similar to viewing a sitewide link on a 1,000 page site as being similar to links from 1,000 unique linking domains.

What would happen if a big company like Amazon.com gave away a $5 credit for following them on Twitter? Cough!

Also have you ever been hacked on one of the social networks by a viral ad a friend sends you? Some spammers have lit up some temporary holes into getting 10's to 100's of thousands of likes/mentions/shares quite quickly.

AndrewL
December 21, 2010 - 6:04am

Google are expanding non-organic, paid listings and relegating organic listings in the SERPS, often below the fold.

That tells you all you need to know about how they value organic listings. It's the "other" part of the SERPS for Google, not the main part.

They've also got no REAL competition in the search field.

Google like to keep us guessing, but I've not seen any major shifts in how they rank organic listings. Their system basically works, and they won't make massive changes to it without risking what they already have.

I know it's crass to simplify SEO, but if I could, I'd say it's like this : build a half-decent site that will pass any of the major directory reviews, then submit to the authority directories, get some other authority links in your niche, then go for less authoritive links (which seem to count for more if you're building on a base of authority links). Social links? No (or neglible) effect that I can see.

Agree with Twitter and the likes - so easy to hack accounts, set up a spam worm, or just auto-post away with links - same with many of the other "social" sites (tumblr,jumptags,delicious etc). About the only thing they do is get a page indexed slightly quicker - not going to do much for rankings (again, I'm simplifying, but that's my experience).

edwardfranklin
December 25, 2010 - 3:35am

Very interesting article and well written too!!

SerpSleuth
December 26, 2010 - 3:18am

Traffic.

Pay attention to the little man behind the curtain. He says traffic matters.

December 28, 2010 - 2:38pm

I get that traffic has value, but some moreso than others. Outside of big brands doing awareness types of campaigns and/or the spread of viral linkbait I haven't seen much value in anything social media.

Our Drupal install had a plugin to cross post some stuff to Twitter. And I accidentally cross posted a new page at a lower price (for users who were accidentally canceled out due to payment issues and such), and in spite of that 2/3 off discount (of the then current rate) + having over 1,000 Twitter followers it took over a week to make a single conversion.

I mean I get that there is perhaps some branding value of the exposure, but how much of the value stream should we give away to chalk it up to "branding"? When does that "branding" become us branding ourselves as the brand freeloaders suck off us?

I don't really use Quora, but somehow have over 400 followers on it, and am getting direct questions asked to me on some high level SEO strategy where the answers are easily worth 6 figures if they apply them. Sadly, most people who demand your labors for free probably won't apply any of it anyway. They would just keep asking for more and more for free, ever sure that there was some secret trick you were not disclosing. However others will read that information after the fact, and some will apply it. In essence you give away your competitive advantages to build someone else's platform.

It is one thing if someone is building a small(ish) scaled community and/or is trying to deliver value to you in a variety of ways (like I aspire to make our membership site here), but if something is an open free for all I just having trouble accepting it as being a solid investment of time. I would rather be a big fish in a smallish pond.

am23g23
October 31, 2011 - 12:35am

Hello, I am new to SEO and am beginning to look into google and other ways to increase traffic. Thanks for the great info!

JohnRobbins
December 27, 2010 - 6:41pm

"I likely have over 1,000 friends on Facebook & yet I have no idea who 90%+ of the people are."

I stopped reading this article after I saw the above sentence.

You're Aaron wall and you have quite the following and that's why you have perhaps 1000 friends on Facebook. To achieve Those kinds of results is why we blog and tweet and write as part of our SEO marketing program.

You're one that has done what it takes to build a following.

So!.....now that you have a following from a couple of different platforms, if you advertise to those followers you're SEO services,...are you black hating? NO!of course not.

Are you spamming if you e-mail and Direct message and promote your SEO services to everyone that follows you even though you don't know 99% of them? No! of course not.

Why not? Because they consciously choose to follow you or automatically followed you.

So!.... I guess if one uses those followers that he has created for the purpose of marketing, then he is a white hat non-spammer.

JohnRobbins at Techndu

stuntdubl
December 28, 2010 - 9:44am

Put it on the list with "real time search" (direct from twitter masses) :)

I hope to all that is holy that myself and my website are never ever really ranked by my "whuffie score".

I also really hope "likes" are never like links.

Sapientbiz1
December 30, 2010 - 8:19pm

As dumb as this question sounds - is there a strategy for the non social butterfly types?

I've heard social media be referred to as a cocktail party - unfortunately not everyone likes to go to cocktails parties - me included.

I like having one on one deep conversations with people.

Yet how can I compete with the Cheerleader types that have 1 Million friends? Is there a way to use social media in a way that one on one deep relationships can be built?

Will Pena
Sapient Business Solutions

AndrewL
December 31, 2010 - 4:42am

Sapientbiz1, if social sites are like cocktail parties, then imagine a cocktail party where everyone is talking AT people, not WITH them, and nobody is listening to anyone. Oh, and I haven't mentioned the noise yet. At this party, you'd here the voices of thousands of bots all talking over each other through the speakers there. You'd drink your drink and head over to a friend's house, or the local pub. By the way, I liken the local pub online to be a niche forum/messageboard where you can actually have indepth conversations with people. These are far more social places online that have been existance since the birth of the internet - before "social" existed in the minds of shallow media types who think social is Twitter and Facebook.

is there a strategy for the non social butterfly types?

Join forums/messageboards in niches that are connected to your business. Promote your own site via great content and link building so people find you etc.

Twitter et al bring such low quality traffic (in my experience).

schttrj
February 8, 2011 - 6:56am

Well, this is another article on link baiting!

But I must say, if SMM is going to help in your SEO, then it's worth it...otherwise, SMM brings highly non-targeted traffic...not worth it

- Ron C.

CureDream
March 11, 2011 - 5:17pm

I've been working on a project lately where having a good internal search engine is really important. Fortunately, my system collects a vast number of signals that can be used to rank things, but I'm starting to feel the problems that Google and other large-scale search engines have, especially the tension between "relevant results" (keyword match) and "high quality results" (quality scoring as in PageRank)

Early on, I was floundering, and a major driver of my search engine development was putting out fires. I'd find that people did a search for "X" and got bad results and I'd make some change that would fix this, but then I'd break the search for "Y".

After a while I started thinking about this in terms of test-driven development. Every time I found a search that got the wrong results, I added it to a test suite that I can run every time I change the search algorithm and I can tweak it until it works the way I want.

Then one day I finally understood some of the academic papers that I'd seen (and even contributed data for) about applying machine learning to search. Once I've got this list of searches that have particular constraints attached as to "X should rank #1 for topic Y" or "Page X should rank better than Page Y for topic Z" or "X should rank in the top 5 for topic Y" I can feed this to a machine learning algorithm and let it turn the knobs until the search works the way I want.

It's almost certain that Google uses this kind of thinking to some extent, and that they could punch a rule into their training system that says something like "eFreedom.com should never rank better than stackoverflow.com" but still keep all the other training rules so this doesn't have a destructive effect on other search terms. (Except for the webmaster who gives the signals that eFreedom.com does) Probably the "Farmer" update involved adding a ruleset that targeted specific "content farms" but not others.

This gives Google a mechanism that can use to penalize a site or a kind of site without having to explicitly put a penalty on the URLs involved.

March 12, 2011 - 7:55am

And I don't think people would make too many legitimate verifiable complaints about issues if Google stuck to doing search. But now that Google wants to own video, mobile, and large chunks of ecommerce it becomes easier for outsiders to claim that such rules are put in place to promote Google products. For example, an article in the New York Times highlighting the launch of QDF factors states:

Mr. Singhal started to worry that Google’s balance was off. When the company introduced its new stock quotation service, a search for “Google Finance” couldn’t find it. After monitoring similar problems, he assembled a team of three engineers to figure out what to do about them.
...
Mr. Singhal introduced the freshness problem, explaining that simply changing formulas to display more new pages results in lower-quality searches much of the time. He then unveiled his team’s solution: a mathematical model that tries to determine when users want new information and when they don’t. (And yes, like all Google initiatives, it had a name: QDF, for “query deserves freshness.”)

So that article presumes that most new stuff is worse than existing stuff. Then it comes from the bias that suggests that new stuff from Google is an aberration & something must be done to account for that.

Plenty of folks launch new sites and services that languish in obscurity. But when Google does "the algorithm" needs to be improved!

asefati
March 14, 2011 - 4:56pm

It is one news sources I read daily. All their news and posts have great editorial value even though some of them maybe short. I don't see any difference between them just one wastes payper and bad for the environment

March 14, 2011 - 7:04pm

HP took a 3rd party tweet and wrapped it in their design, then ranked it in Google. Is that really "quality" content?

efoghorjos
March 14, 2011 - 4:57pm

Great resource. This is particularly helpful to newbies. This is a must get tips if you intend to build quality links to your website.

Kim-B
March 22, 2011 - 6:53pm

Good article as I am still new to some parts of Seo...

raphnexx
August 8, 2011 - 7:37am

There are many SEO tutorial Ebook in this site.You may want to read,SEO specialists need to be more exposed on topics like these. Also in the general topic on hand,automation may not be a better solution right? Search engines appreciate sites which are organically grown (links).

bluecorona
March 25, 2011 - 9:16am

You can cheat any system and get some short term extra benefit (perhaps) OR you can just focus on the long term and "do the right thing." If you "need" the SEO value from social media, you don't have a business (hell, if you rely solely on SEO to grow your business, you probably don't have a business).

For most companies, the name of the game is simple and relatively straightforward - Establish and promote yourself (your company) as THE authority for what you do in the markets you do it. Promote authority on your website and across all popular social media platforms.

Engage your target audience and don't try to sell everyone (i.e. DIY'ers will always be DIY'ers - they'll never hire you and they'll always ask for more for free - they aren't your target audience, so don't worry about them). Focus on doing the right thing and on "the big picture" and let everyone else run around and waste time looking for a new way to "game the system."

March 25, 2011 - 2:54pm

Good advice on the selling bit and deciding who you want your customers to be.

I do disagree with that first part about "real business" though. In an environment when so many "real" businesses are going bankrupt due to a combination of a financial depression (that is papered over) and technological disruption, there is nothing to be ashamed about in having a business which has decent margins that is driven by social media and the like.

And yes promoting yourself as "THE" authority is huge for branding, positioning, sales, and even link building. But if you are the expert stuck on page 2 waiting for the market to recognize your brilliance, and a competitor who knows half as much but is a spammier link builder is eating your lunch, then I wouldn't wait for the market or the algorithm to figure it out. Given a long enough time lead the leadership position builds gravity and becomes self-reinforcing. A lot of today's "white hat natural market leaders" were folks who operated in the gray area (as far as Google guidelines go) to build an advantage & then reinvested those profits into building more a more natural profile. For quite a while TripAdvisor was the biggest link buyer from some of the top link networks. Now that they are so established they no longer need to buy links (or at least they no longer need to buy in that type of quantity).

Loretta131
March 27, 2011 - 2:06am

Hello everyone, I'm Loretta and I'm new here, and to everything that has to do with internet marketing. I've gotten some pretty good referrals from other affiliates about where to go for free to inexpensive training, so here I am. I'm a mother of 5 and I work part-time as well as going part time to College. Pretty busy but need to have another source of income, preferably one which will allow me to one day quit the other job. Anyway, I'm going to look around a bit, get familiar and come back tomorrow to get more information. See ya later

milancole
April 11, 2011 - 10:59pm

I think this is a general trend industry wide. You want to link to other sites to make your site relevant, but generally speaking, the longer you can keep someone on your own site the more money you make. Another example of this is how many blogs comments (including here) now point to on-site "user profiles" instead of direct links to the commenters website.

April 12, 2011 - 5:35pm

If you look at our blog posts themselves some have 30 to 50 outbound links in them. The reason we require registration to comment here is that before we did we spent hours a day dealing with comment spam. And over time this site will transition to add even more community features. The current profiles you see on the site might look vastly different than what exists on them 6 months to a year down the road.

DigESource
May 2, 2011 - 6:20am

Policing content is something Google should NOT do. Policing RELEVANCY IS! Lets not forget that Google is using an automated system to tell everyone else NOT to use automated systems. Google is rolling out it's value system for us. Here comes the will of God, as Google sees it!

baddesleyboy
May 18, 2011 - 9:25am

Thanks for putting some great information and tools out there.

immawan
May 20, 2011 - 5:11am

thank for very usefull share about the back link, hope will working on my site.

jeronco
May 26, 2011 - 9:07pm

I like what you say, and in most cases agree with it. But maybe you could start discussing our options for the future, rather than just the problems it will bring...

katerina jones
June 9, 2011 - 9:29am

I love the tips mentioned about what's hot and what's not to do with link building and popularity..this is a comprehensive article and got a bunch of information learned from this.

thank you so much, Aaron and Andy for bringing in valuable information

keepkalm
June 10, 2011 - 5:24pm

The problem that I have with Google adding weight to links, reviews, social authority or whatever is coming next is that they do not dedicate the resources to getting rid of the spam.

People started buying links, soliciting reviews and now we are going to see social spam. More fake accounts, more contrived linking schemes and Google is going to act surprised/disappointed that people try to manipulate their search results.

ndarsana
June 17, 2011 - 6:02am

Hello, I am a newbie to SEO. Thanks for sharing information and tips.I would like to know the latest trends in SEO for listing keywords in first page.

walkerseo
July 5, 2011 - 11:21pm

I agree, FB is in the process of dying, anyone who has watched MySpace and has been looking at Twitter over the last few years can see a predictable process. We have also seen the big G get seriously nudged by FB. Smaller niche sites will end up dominating everything soon I believe. Niche markets are the future, I have a friend who built up an international "local" oriented site that has over 150K unique visitors every month, and we can't figure out how to monetize, because the whole site is php.

July 6, 2011 - 12:11am

...shouldn't prohibit you from monetizing the site...to a search engine or most end users HTML is HTML...find a way to do a PHP include with ad units as a starting point.

most CMS tools also come with plug ins for things like ad integration & management.

silverflickr
July 15, 2011 - 8:50am

Hi everyone - some great comments. I have just joined SEObook and really keen to start. However I can't download anything!! Downloaded the latest firefox, but when I get to rankchecker it doesn't work. I click on the links and nothing happens - it is ok on my husbands laptop. I wouldn't normally post something like this, however I have downloaded lots of other programmes and it is only these ones that aren't working.

Has anyone else come accross this?

Any suggestions?

mothompson25
August 8, 2011 - 8:33am

Hi, I'm just starting out and looking forward to some great advice from your site.
What I've had a chance to go over so far is looking very promising.

clicksperday we...
September 4, 2011 - 10:40am

But i strongly feel google plus will fail in following months.
I was a fan of google .
I got the google plus account at the beginning.
Created multiple accounts. One for friends and others for my group (discuss hobby).
Google closed all me other accounts.
Where there is no freedom to express (google plus is like china forces you).
facebook is like India (freedom for every one , may have drawbacks but better than google plus).

we cannot create group and discuss in google plus .

Regards
Harsha
clicksperday.com

sunshineyingming
September 6, 2011 - 10:45am

Hello!Nice to see you.I'm from china.
Nowadays in China more and more people use search engine,and a lot of campany begin us search egine to sell their goods.I learn the SEO only two months.But I interest in it,because it is a veary easy way to build up my own enterprise.
Nice to join seobook.com!

garryowen2017
November 7, 2011 - 6:09pm

Hello everyone.
I'm very happy i've found this blog. I'm new at SEO so this blog has helped me a lot
tanks to Aaron Wall and everybody for the blog and the tips

leoartetavillar
November 8, 2011 - 11:23pm

Allow me to introduce myself! I am so glad to find this brilliant aid in this wonderful SEO world! Thanks!

jessiccarobertt
November 11, 2011 - 9:49am

One of the questions we are hearing a lot these days is: "What is the Facebook 'like' button is?" Once we to explain it, the next question we get: "How fast can I get on my website?" So I decided to write an explanation of how it is done, the reading of each to understand and put into action for their own website.

mtweed
December 2, 2011 - 5:07am

Hi I like the Rank Checker tool, but is there a way to upload bulk Domain URL's with a keyword assigned to it. I have over 100 sites and would love to be able to use Rank Checking for each page for at least one keyword possibly more.
To cut and paste one by one all the URL's plus all the keywords takes ages.
Thanks

December 2, 2011 - 5:28pm

...but you can't currently bulk upload domain names for a keyword.

Tolga Ziyat
March 9, 2012 - 5:13am

my real name Tarık Keçe
The territory of Turkey, I'm
webmaster and SEO topics of interest,Forgive my English is not good.
I am very happy to meet with you here.
best regards.
https://plus.google.com/#116575509008410121004/posts

onlineseos
April 18, 2012 - 6:35am

Good site with alot of great stuff.

Training SEO
April 24, 2012 - 9:09am

I am agree with this post, because social sharing has become limited to few industries promotion and self-promotion, here some of industries, which are not related to web technologies, are just involved in social media for personal use and their own social connections, here can’t get those kind of status which should be indexed and we all know that goggle will index only and only quality content on search term, so here to improve social result of result, need to share some information about all kind of industries updates, else only web and technology related updates will be live in listing.

cutey
May 12, 2012 - 8:46pm

I think social is an important signal. Yeah it's easy to pay someone to tweet stuff, or make fake account but it's also easy to buy links, and buy auto spam links.

nehasinghal
May 16, 2012 - 5:44am

i agree this info bt now in time google as other have change daily their algorithm and to find out new updates in seo fector. so if u want it more reliable and useful for your visitors then plz update it.
Thanks

tskailey
June 13, 2012 - 8:37am

Get movers and shakers to spread your message. That may involve payment of some kind. Reciprocation, favor, cash, drugs, booze, hookers. Whatever works.

I chuckled after reading this line. Fantastic Post Aaron, in link building one must understand and learn how to build links naturally and never ever use black hat SEO.

1futonman2
June 14, 2012 - 3:54pm

My site, futons.net was established in 1998. I have searched my competitors and can't find any other site selling futons with a site that old. Is this something that I can capitalize on somehow?

Thank you

lbullskin
June 25, 2012 - 4:52pm

We see this all the time; a new way to get high rankings comes to the scene and then everyone abuses it until that method becomes classified as spam. So what's the next best thing? Or is there some method that will always stay constant as a proven method to fill your glass with SEO juice?

June 26, 2012 - 12:43am

...is change. Especially true with all the verticalization Google is doing.

saculcubani
July 9, 2012 - 11:16pm

I didn't know so much about social rank. Thanks for sharing this with us!

USOApps
July 11, 2012 - 12:26pm

Great article, thanks! It helped me, a lot of good information. Thanks one more time for sharing!

Jamilnaveed
July 17, 2012 - 3:19pm

Hi Aaron,
1 question for you, is worth to create a directory listing web site.
i am thinking to build one.
worth spending time on this or look for something else.

July 17, 2012 - 3:26pm

...but if you value my opinion please feel free to ask it in our member's area.

bradfcs
August 21, 2012 - 9:45pm

Hey Aaron,

I usually love your content but I think you might be wrong here, I've found a magic bullet that will get you 1 gazzillion Twitter followers and will allow you to message every person on Facebook with the click of a button check it out (insert random affiliate link)!

Of course I'm only kidding! Reading your posts like this gives me a bit of faith in the IM/SM community, almost every post I read about 'SEO' and social media is complete crap. Google & Matt Cutts are out there spreading lies about how their algorithm works and majority of the so called SEO authorities are just spreading the same lies they heard from Cutts (have great content and they will come). We all know there is so much more to it and I think you are dead on in saying social media only works if you have people that actually care about your stuff not just cause they saw your page.

Thanks for being honest with us even though you have the credibility to not be!

Jinky
October 23, 2012 - 9:04am

Firefox rank checker not working. Why?

sam1990
October 23, 2012 - 1:42pm

I am currently looking to hire a SEO expert for my website. Where do I search? How do I know they are good?

Also can you tell me the possible reason behind the following scenarios...

The pages which showed at average position of 4-10 are now not even in the first 10 pages of the search for that particular keyword. Why?

Thought those pages are indexed on google...

Contact me at sahib1990@gmail.com

J Christopher Harris
December 14, 2012 - 11:37am

There is no truth that Social ranking is dying. The method and style can be changed but social media activity and visitors trend on social sites can not be changed. one way link building services

autocad
December 25, 2012 - 8:59am

nice article. thanks for having time to share it.

Dalibor Dudic
February 27, 2013 - 9:03am

Hello everyone, finally I got the time to explorer SEO myself and hopefully become good at it. My goal is to do all the SEO work on my websites on my own.

If anyone know good guides for SEO beginners please shout out.

Good day SEO people :)

rkumarveomit
March 4, 2013 - 5:11am

Wonderful articles on link building knowledge in SEO. I just wanna ask one question that what is tier link and how it would be useful for us.

repoulin
March 4, 2013 - 2:52pm

So should i mark all my out bound lins as no follow to avoid being denounced by google? If thats the case then isnt the tag pointless since google could just do this for all out bound links anyways:

is google webmasters the best way to identify if any links are at risk?

337design
March 18, 2013 - 1:53pm

Social Media - The Part of SEO
It is possible to make strong connection with a large audience on internet through social media marketing. The shared links and profile web page URLs are great ways for increase traffic on the website and get business success. Thank for sharing this post.

budnet
March 20, 2013 - 8:58am

useful article for link building, sure it helpful to build links

Jendal
April 10, 2013 - 3:30pm

Hi, After Rank Checker plugin was updated, all my domains/keywords were lost, and I can't get them back. It is hours of work to paste it in manually again, so I would really appreciate advise in how to restore it. I have had this problem once before, and at that time I was able to find an answer in a SEO thread. But it seems that that specific question and answer is now removed! So please help! Kind regards Filip

blakejob
April 23, 2013 - 7:08pm

Been unable to add new keywords for sometime. Read through years of comments and lots of people have asked about this but I have not seen any answers.

HenryThomas
May 2, 2013 - 9:50am

Hi ! If we never use Black hat techniques then it is not worthless for us. second thing is that we have to change our methods and use some innovative acts.

SEO Jerry
May 3, 2013 - 3:26pm

Google and Bing and any other search engine have a limited area of "shade" to work in, using a tree as an analogue to a search phrase. If the search phrase is an apple tree, the engines have to find some apples, not peaches. And there is a finite number of apples. Which is the best apple? The biggest one? The reddest one? The one closest to the tree, or the one farthest from it? The most recent to hit the ground?

That's about it. They cannot really get too far from the shade, or they will be under the wrong tree. And with millions of apples to sort through, the engines have to cut corners by offering the ehows and wikis of the world as search solutions. Its a "safe bet" that, unfortunately, costs searchers time. I never click ehow anymore. Its data is never what I need. Same for wikis. I always look for individuals who have done their homework on a subject. Like you, Mr. Wall. Your content is superb.

alicecornelios
May 15, 2013 - 12:54am

Yes, SR plays an important role in SEO. However, it is really hard to play balckhat SEO over this matter. Facebook and Twitter can suspend or banned you if they notice a suspicious activities in your account. Hence, you cannot simply use a robotool to create and add friends automatically. Is there any other way to jumpstart or where to start my SEO faster and easier in Social Ranking?

abrarseo
May 28, 2013 - 5:15pm

it is really a great article. I think so social rank has still something to do with the search engine ranking thats why all these social media websites has so much traffic

adanacAndy
June 28, 2013 - 5:10pm

This new layout makes it even harder for searchers to 'escape' from Google's properties... ack!

Mosaic
October 17, 2013 - 10:14pm

Search engines are getting closer to thinking like a human. The investment in the algorithm is huge and it's paying off. I'm finding it easier to SEO just using common sense. You would think that social links would be important because there are more "followers" per user than any other platform. So, think like a human when promoting your site.

Content Marketing [edit: spam link removed, account banned]

October 23, 2013 - 8:57pm

... or at least an intelligent one, would be not doing jackass stuff like comment spamming SEO blogs with off topic keyword rich anchor text.

Mosaic your SEObook account has been banned & I removed your "content marketing" link to printingct.com. I will also be on the look out for similar links to mosaic247.net.

Perhaps one day you will think like a human. Until then ...

Wild Wally
November 26, 2013 - 4:47pm

No matter how high up in the Google search you get, if your site and or content is lacking, it doesn't matter. NOTHING beats good content, if you build it, they will come...

Ajayp
March 25, 2014 - 3:17pm

Thanks for for making such an SEO deciptive thread. I am sure I'll get to learn a lot abour SEO and blogging on Wordpress. I really appreciate it and welcome all other new visitors to such a wonderful blog.

dingt3
April 27, 2014 - 2:02pm

it's very a good seo tools,we can use it to check the rank easily,it can save me a lot of time,i will intro to our friends,thank you again!

Speedo23
May 15, 2014 - 4:57pm

how do I switch back to the older version of rank checker? this new version shortens everything to the home page and doesnt show the ranking url.. help

Ajayp
May 27, 2014 - 5:15pm

The Google Helpouts Ambassador Program is a unique opportunity to spread the word about Helpouts, earn money, and influence a new Google product--all on your own schedule.

websignal.ro
February 21, 2015 - 1:11pm

nice work , but i tink seo and social media are 2 things so important , not good to use blackhat

ElitMedya
March 1, 2015 - 2:47pm

This is so good Share l will use thanks

sky_fall
March 1, 2015 - 10:25pm

Hi there, I was wondering if anyone knows of any SEO courses that are free which will also be recognised (accredited) as I was looking to bob this on my CV?

thanks a lot in advance

March 1, 2015 - 10:47pm

Anything which is accredited likely has significant cost and overhead behind that accreditation & if it is in a new tech field is going to be marketed at people who are having their work pay the bill.

The advice which is a true competitive advantage shouldn't be priced at free either. And much of the advice which is free is biased by either being lagging / following consensus, and/or manipulated in other ways (like shilling for Google, intentionally omitting important aspects, or full of half-truths to look good for self-promotional purposes).

xtremeux
July 14, 2015 - 11:34am

SEO book is providing excellent help and solving many confusions and doubts. I learn lots of thing from SEO book articles. SEO book is extremely helpful to eCommerce seo company and ppc management company.

AlyLauren
October 9, 2015 - 2:44am

At the end of the day it will always be the traffic that matters the most. Also each marketers have their own technique, in order to reach their goals in their websites. Know your target market that will always be the most important factor if you want to achieve something.

Seomangaldeep
November 7, 2015 - 6:48am

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Ola Rybacka
January 7, 2016 - 10:55am

Thank you for this article, seems really interesting!
The laws that govern Google Search are sometimes really hard to sort them out. That's why our CMO wanted to systematize them in one article based on simple mathematical formula.
This article was written based on his knowledge, experience and imagination, so please mind that it's unconfirmed by Google and it's just a piece of theoretical considerations.
Enjoy reading!
timecamp.com/blog/index.php/2016/01/the-mathematics-of-google-trust-rank/

January 14, 2016 - 6:48am

it is lines like this ... "If I would be Google, I would manage mine own algorithm with moving in a multidimensional space." ... which require a marketing strategy based on irrelevant comment spamming.

your link has been delinked and your account banned.

rohitpahuja7878
January 23, 2016 - 6:03am

Nowadays all website dont have a good social activity or web design services, just because of this social rank are dying. To improve this seo specialist have to well aware about all the things just like seo website designing and other services related to that

elagoondigital
February 2, 2016 - 9:49am

I am Enjoy reading to your blog article. Sometimes Google Search are very hard getting ranked. Thanks for shearing us the article, the topic is really interesting!

Rich SEO
February 11, 2016 - 2:03am

Yes Social media is dying it's nothing but noise and gossip, so unless that is your game you won't be noticed. Video creative on youtube and a solid website that offers a service people want are the only things that matter...for the most part. Also make sure you use good SEO tools like https://www.crawlmonster.com to evaluate your website.

Clement Girard
April 7, 2016 - 7:38am

Congrats, the website is really well done and has allowed me to change my strategy towards SEO ;)

September 5, 2016 - 3:41pm

Its not working :( love the tool.

kalaivanan
February 21, 2017 - 1:06pm

I want to track websites i don't own like what is trending on that websites?

February 23, 2017 - 12:34pm

...competitive research tools like Ahrefs & SEMrush or even something like SimilarWeb or SearchMetrics for enterprise-level clients, though it is hard to pick one to recommend without knowing what specifically you are looking for. In many cases it makes sense to track different performance aspects for sites with multiple different tools.

November 27, 2017 - 2:55pm

can you upgrade the "rank tracker" to work with the last version of firefox? thank you

December 1, 2017 - 11:31am

...though it is taking longer than we hoped it would.

August 29, 2018 - 2:38am

i'm new here, just want to say hi to everyone.

November 14, 2019 - 6:02am

Hi, am new to SEO and seobook

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