There's a lot of discussion around the impact of Google+ activity on the impact of SEO value. In today's guest author article, +Carolyn Capern of CT Social gives us all a background on the recent history of search engine optimization and busts the myths related to +1's on Google+'s impact of SEO value to your site.
Search engine optimization: a semi-mythical field wherein technical and marketing wizards go into a lagging website and, in a matter of weeks or months, move it to the first page of Google, infinity, and beyond. At least, that’s what it looked like from the outside.
Actually, in reality, the search engine optimization field used to be basically a numbers game. In order to persuade Google that your website was the right place for users in search of a particular answer, professional SEOs would work (using methods both legitimate and questionable) to get your site to the magic number of relevant keywords and website backlinks. A particularly thorough SEO would also look at the way your website is coded, your online reviews, your directory listings, and maybe your social media presence. They might even look at setting up new websites that can cross-reference each other.
And as little as two years ago, those techniques worked. Some better than others. But in general, it was not uncommon for experienced companies to reliably sell first-page rankings for websites.
But behind the scenes, Google was changing. They rolled out this social “network” called Google+, and followed it with updates named Panda and Penguin. And almost overnight, SEOs started to notice that some of the old ways didn’t work anymore.
Link wheels broke. Keyword rankings dropped. First page sites suddenly found themselves banned, or dropped to a much lower ranking.
The word started to get out that Google+ was going to be integrated into search results and other parts of Google services library. Talk began about topics called “Authorship” and “semantic search”. And rumors started to fly about the value of being on Google+ as a business professional.
One such rumor, which persists commonly to this day, relates to the direct SEO benefits of the +1 button on Google+, which can be attached to both individual posts and specific website pages. But is there any truth to this supposed benefit?
The Myth of the +1 Boost
Professional SEO experts who study Google+ and its effect on search rankings have been debating the relative merits of the +1 button in affecting search engine rankings. In August 2013, Moz published a study that indicated a high correlation between SEO rankings and Google+ activity (specifically +1s). Immediately afterward, Google engineer Matt Cutts stepped up and said explicitly that +1s do not directly affect ranking. The debate still goes on, as it’s clear from other statements by Google and Matt Cutts himself that Google+ interactions do correlate to search.
There are other things we know; for example, we know that Google assigns a PageRank to Google+ posts, just like any other web page, and we know that as a result of personalized search, it’s possible for a Google+ post with a link to your website to outrank the actual link FROM your website.
We see that, in general, it seems like posts that feature full-size images as well as links perform better overall. +Dustin W. Stout did a great job outlining why this is in his article on the perfect Google+ post. They may be more likely to go “hot” on Google+, getting lots of +1s, comments, and/or shares. (These are usually the posts that wind up out-ranking the associated website link.)
However, we also know that sharing a link seems to be what really passes SEO value to the original page. Dustin and others have conducted studies to try to determine where +1s are counted in favor of a web page and when it is predominantly in favor of the post alone. I’d encourage you to take the time to read about his extensive +1 experiments, but for now one REALLY BIG takeaway worth knowing about is that if you use an image post format (placing a link to the web page in the body of your post, and sharing a large-format link), the social activity will still be attributed to the page.
It’s not a perfect science. And the extent to which that social activity directly affects rankings is yet to be revealed by the Google algorithm. We can say, though, that social activity (particularly from Google+, where people’s recommendations of a web page can ultimately be tied to search results) ultimately does make a difference, definitely within the social network and most likely beyond it.
The truth is that the real benefits that come from Google+ and the +1 button have more to do with the relationships behind the endorsement than the endorsement itself. It has to do, essentially, with two things: the quality and share-worthiness of the post, and the reputation and reach of the author. There is no magic number of +1s, comments, or shares that will be guaranteed to put you on the front page of Google. However, by focusing on building relationships and creating quality content, you can develop an atmosphere and an authority that will ultimately support your SEO activities.