Links Are More Influential Than Social Signals
Mon, Jul 9, 2012
He was recently interviewed at SMX Advanced by Danny Sullivan. He gives a brief insight into web links versus social signals. Matt outlines at present that links are still a more powerful factor than social signals. Matt admits this may change in the future (he say’s 10 years) but not for now. Interestingly I wonder how Google+ factors into this as we have already seen links here becoming more influential as a ranking factor than across other social sites especially with local search. You can guarantee as they grow this social platform that Google+ will provide a higher ranking signal than other social sites.
There has been much debate around the power of social links espeically with the user base and size of many of the social channels and the amount of time that users spend on them. It becomes hard for Google to ignore this as a ranking factor. We imagine this will all change in the future but for now links and social signals should work hand in hand as part of your SEO strategy and don’t just focus on the social element.
Zak is the Director of Red Alien and an experienced SEO consult, passionate about online integrity, user experiences and optimisation strategies. Zak has worked with companies of all sizes from start-ups to big brands and charities.
The video does suggest that links are powerful as they are now when Matt Cutts mentioned something about the percentage of nofollow links on the Internet. Actually, I’m surprised that there’s only a small percentage of nofollow links as of the moment. As long as Google’s algorithm for finding true PageRank relies on links, I think they’ll still be considered powerful.
= Gerald Martin, SEO: White Label Reseller =
Mr Cutts, your a legend, its funny how many of us in seo bow to his every word, love to be a fly on the wall at his place