Tweets and posts do affect search engine optimisation

18 November 2010

Finally, it has been confirmed, in a roundabout way, that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter do have certain value in a search engine optimisation campaign.

A highly reported question and answer series with representatives of Google and Bing has thrown up some useful little nuggets of information. For instance, Google, in particular, credits data found in Twitter's "firehose".

Most social networking sites give all links a nofollow value in usual usage circumstances, but in Twitter's firehose data stream, the real time continual flow of tweet topics, this does not apply. Although the links may carry a nofollow value on an individual's Twitter page, if the article is being heavily referenced or tweeted about then the included links are utilised for search ranking purposes.

Both Google and Bing told search engine land that the quality of the author who is referencing the link mattered for ranking purposes – Google rates author quality while Bing suggests that a well-known public figure or publisher will give a referenced link more ranking status.

When it comes to Facebook, Bing said they "look at" shared links marked for Everyone and whether a link has been shared from a Facebook fan page. Google, however, said they treat shared links on Facebook fan pages in the same way as tweeted links, but they don't have information on links posted on personal walls.

Interestingly, when asked if they calculate whether a Facebook link should carry more weight depending on who shared it, Bing said, "We can tell if something is of quality on Facebook by leveraging Twitter. If the same link is shared in both places, it's more likely to be legitimate."

So, for web masters and search engine optimisation marketers the key could be to get your link on Facebook and Twitter at the same time, preferably shared or tweeted by a well-known or authoritative social networker. Get this right and SEO generated search engine traffic could improve.