Google’s double headed policy on Social Signals to promote Google Plus

Google’s double headed policy

For the people who have no idea about who is Matt Cuts, He is the head of Googles webspam team. For webmasters and Search engine optimisation (SEO) guyz, Matt Cutts like the messenger from heaven, because he always announce valuable insights about Google search and Google search algorithms.

Social Signals, We love them, Noooot :)
Social Signals, We love them, Noooot 🙂

In 2010 December 10th Matt Cutts release a video abut Social Signals. Social signals are the traffic and links generated from Social websites like Facebook and Twitter. In this video he answer the question from a webmaster asking “Hello Matt, a recent article of Danny Sullivan suggests that Google uses Twitter and Facebook links as a ranking signal. Can you Confirm this? Can you elaborate a little bit more on this?” Matt Cuts answer the question saying “Yes, I can conform it. We do use Twitter and Facebook links in ranking, As we always has. in addition we look for the reputation of the author or the creator of Twitter or Facebook page” He also mentioned in the video “Back in May 2010 we didn’t use Facebook and Twitter but we are using now”.  therefore it is conformed that, Google use Social signals when ranking web pages.

However, In 22 January 2014 Matt cuts released a new video about Social signals. webmaster asked “Are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm? How much do they matters?”. Matt Cuts answer the question by saying “Facebook and Twitter pages are treat as normal webpages ” and he specifically mentioned that they don’t care about how many followers you got or How many likes you have.

 Why is this change?

It’s a Very simple answer. Google launched Google Plus (Google +) in 28th of June 2011. Google plus is mainly introduced to dominate the market of Facebook and Twitter. The best way to prove this is, when Google shows search results, they shows how many followers author has in is Google Plus profile, not Facebook likes or Twitter followers.

Capture

However, I still believe that, Facebook and Twitter are contribution lot, when it’s come to good ethical web traffic.

Google is controlling the Search and they can decide when to change their algorithm and what to change. End of the day It’s all about Business.

These are the two videos, First one is released on 2010 December and second one is released on 2014 January.

Yes WE Do

Does Google use data from social sites in ranking?

Hello Matt, a recent article of Danny Sullivan suggests that Google uses Twitter and Facebook links as a ranking signal. Can you confirm this? Can you elaborate a little bit more on this? -WebSEOAnaly…

No We Don’t

Are pages from social media sites ranked differently?

Are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking algorithm? How much do they matter?
Ryan, Michigan

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