Thread: Google +1 Button Has No Effect on Rankings - Authorship May be New Ranking Signal

The Google+ Button is another social signal that Google is not using, but it looks like authorship is becoming a new ranking signal.

The Google +1 Button Has No “Direct Effect” On Rankings, But…


Matt Cutts recently said that they are not using Twitter, FaceBook or Google Plus for ranking signals.

This does not mean that Google has given up completely on social networking signals. I think they will continue to try to find an effective way to use social networks, but they have not been able to make that work thus far. It does, however, mean that everything you hear about the importance of social networking signals to ranking results is currently nothing more than misguided speculation.

FaceBook is amazing for getting attention from people in your network of friends. So I completely understand Google's desperation to find a way to incorporate social signals into search results. Getting your face in search results is a good idea IMO via your Google Plus profile.

Hmm, maybe the completely boring/nerd image that the Google Hangout squad are portraying is not helping much in the social aspect either? I don't want to watch their video, or hangout with them on initial impressions.

So now my question is if Google does or does not measure incoming traffic from Facebook, Twitter and other sources and my answer is: Why wouldn't they?
I have no proof either way, but each time my traffic spikes, I also see Google traffic increasing with that.

And the more people share stories from my Facebook page, the higher the page seems to rank in Google itself.

So I would say social media matters a lot, but use it without the benefit of Google in mind and let it work as intended.


I was told however, that having links below popular Youtube videos does count directly.

Would be interested in knowing for sure how much of that is the case.

~ Mike

Google has no way of measuring incoming traffic from any web site, other than when a site owner uses Google Analytics, which Matt Cutts has said that they do not use. There are a lot of people who do not believe him. Using Analytics data would be a bit unfair anyways, because only a relatively small percentage of web site use Google Analytics.

Social media is good for driving traffic, but if you believe what Matt Cutts says, they are not currently using most social media for anything related to rankings. He has already denied their use of Twitter, FaceBook, Google Plus and Google+. This was after he spent the last two years encouraging people to use these sites.

YouTube is the exception. He has not addressed that and I agree that YouTube is probably the one social media site that does directly influence search results because is is all under Google's control. A few years ago I did a study on how YouTube videos get chosen to appear in Google search results. What I found is that you have to get the video to rank well within YouTube first and then it will show up in Google results. The right Keywords in the title, the description text, tags, views and likes all play a role within YouTube. That in turn affects the videos that Google selects for their organic search results.

Originally Posted by firetown

And the more people share stories from my Facebook page, the higher the page seems to rank in Google itself.

You may find that your FaceBook page is ranking well because it is well done and people are linking to it, and not because of factors within FaceBook. Plus, good quality content still plays a role in FaceBook, just like it does in any web page. All Google is saying is that they have not found an effective way to use FaceBook social signals to influence rank positions.

Originally Posted by Andy101

Hmm, maybe the completely boring/nerd image that the Google Hangout squad are portraying is not helping much in the social aspect either? I don't want to watch their video, or hangout with them on initial impressions.

The two characters in the video are geeky, plus the video itself is way-yy-y-y too long. At 38 minutes it violates just about every rule for making a good informational video. I hope these guys are not going to replace Matt Cutts when it comes to answering questions. Whether you agree with him or not, Matt has a certain attitude that makes his videos easy to watch.

What exactly is Matt saying? Is he stating that social media presence has no influence on ranking the website of the active user or is he claiming that social media is not being used to rank social media profiles?

He is currently saying that they are not using social network signals to rank web sites because they have not found a way to do so. In a series of recent statements, he just backed away from all the statements he made over the past two years that were encouraging people to use social media to help improve the rank positions for their web sites. From all of the statements that I have seen, Matt was pushing social media all the way up until March of 2012, and then he dropped it. Now he is backing away.

I don't think that has anything to do with individual social media profiles. They stand on their own just like any other web page. If a profile is popular it will have a ton of backlinks both from external sources and within the social network. As far as I can tell, they are using YouTube social signals, but that is one of their properties. They also appear to be giving a preference to LinkedIn and Twitter profiles in search results. Just search for a person's name and you can see that.

Matt has even said that they have not found a way to use Google+ to provide valid signals. It appears that they realized that this is too easy to fake and they are just encouraging more bad behavior on the web.

I never agreed with the push to use social networking anyway. It is just another artificial hoop to jump through. Most people over 35 could not give a hoot about social networking. I also think almost all social networking sites are poorly designed and chaotic at best. The only sites that make sense to me are the video sites, because they are easy to search and easy to navigate.

The thing that I find the most curious is that he keeps referring to how ranking signals may include social networking signals ten years in the future. TEN YEARS? It that a sign that they have abandoned this entirely? I don't know. It is a mixed message.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

I don't think that has anything to do with individual social media profiles. They stand on their own just like any other web page. If a profile is popular it will have a ton of backlinks both from external sources and within the social network.

Ok, this is what I wanted to clarify as I know of Twitter profiles with zero non Twitter backlinks and a PR of 3 and a keyword presence. But I see a lot of other factors play a role. Possibly the age of the profile, the keywords in the url for certain. I'd say a profile more than 3 years old gets some sort of credibility boost. This part is just a guess based on what I have observed. But there are many other trickle down effects I am seeing.

Networkedblogs applications for example get boosts from profiles and crappy new blogs rank quickly with their networkedblogs url linking to their blogs which cannot rank on their own.

I don't see social media dying at all, but I see it improving long term, making it harder to have fake accounts etc. so it would not be wise for Google not to give people what they want.

Matt's comments are very general in nature. I see lots of ways people manipulate social media, but it is not tactics which are common knowledge amongst most spammers. So I guess Matt does his job to discourage many from doing what he doesn't want to see done.

Google was close to a deal to purchase Digg in 2008 for $200 million. This would have been a good property to build out for social signals. But the deal fell through and Google +1 was developed.

The result is that Google +1 is far from the Facebook killer claimed and Digg was just sold for $500,000 (Ouch).

Twitter for was great for its feed that was used in Google Realtime Search. But google realtime search has been suspended after their deal with Twitter expired in 2011.

Read more: Google Real-Time Search - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have completely forgotten about Digg. Is it still worth submitting stories to?

Originally Posted by bogart

Google was close to a deal to purchase Digg in 2008 for $200 million. This would have been a good property to build out for social signals. But the deal fell through and Google +1 was developed.

The result is that Google +1 is far from the Facebook killer claimed and Digg was just sold for $500,000 (Ouch).

Twitter for was great for its feed that was used in Google Realtime Search. But google realtime search has been suspended after their deal with Twitter expired in 2011.

Read more: Google Real-Time Search - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by firetown

I have completely forgotten about Digg. Is it still worth submitting stories to?

The new owners of Digg have written a completely new algorithm which uses both Twitter and Facebook integration. You now need to sign in with either Facebook or Twitter. When you post a new article on Digg, the bookmark is actually posted to your timeline. Digg uses both Facebook and Twitter social signals as well as Diggs to rank stories. You can also submit tips to Digg by attaching “tip @digg” to yout tweets.