Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Google Plus links count as backlinks

There is an ongoing discussion on Social Media and SEO. Currently promoting the synergies of these at Dell, no wonder there are some insights.

One of the common questions is:

Does Social media have an influence on natural search rankings - Answer: Yes

And there are several ways I can 'prove' that. So the question many still ask - correlation or causation, can be answered: Both!

First things first, let me show you one screen which proves the connection. Do you use Google webmaster tools? For SEO folks, that's a standard. And in that tool are backlink reports. As backlinks are considered to have one of the strongest influences on rankings, it is a standard for seo to look at these.

This is how you get there:
On the following page, select 'download latest' links from others to your site.
And then search in the results for plus.google.com as the referring url:


Voila! Clear proof that Google sees these links just as regular backlinks and tracks them in GWT.
Like with many other links, it is not possible to see HOW MUCH influence one link has - and it is not for lack of trying - but I would consider this enough  of a proof that it does count for search engine results page rankings.

Google shows these since roughly a year I would say. Now my hope would be, that Google easily and quickly identifies Google Plus Link spammers and discredits their links, but I doubt they are there already.

As shown in profile - I work for Dell and we have a rather large site with the according number of backlinks from Google Plus and many other sites.

Would you count this as proof that social influences search rankings?

5 comments:

  1. It would be good to actually test G+ links on a site with no links so there is a "control" case.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Agree. We tested with pages (not site) that has no other link, and it works.

      Delete
  2. In my opinion, links we got from G+ as they are dofollow , they give us two points for Google Ranking Algo, and both are link signal & social signal ... you should beware of spamming when use this kind of backlinks ... as social platform can prove your spammy activities and Google will downgrade your page ranking ( Google will see spammy links as bad links ) ...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good point, and the focus on social media should always be engagement, if you ask me. This is just using one of the effects of relationships.

      Delete
  3. Great Strategy to find do follow links for get Google Ranking!!!

    ReplyDelete

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