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Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

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Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#31

Post by Matt_Cutts »

muxxa wrote: post #2

> Add Google authorship information to your online content I can't find the reference, but I remember reading here on HN that someone investigating a large drop in traffic to pages with #1 organic rankings traced it back to the profile photo that got added to pages with authorship attribution. There didn't seem to be a traffic drop on pages with #2 or #3 etc., so the author came to the conclusion that the profile thu…

I do remember that article, and here's my debunking of that claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5793803

The short version is that the site was affected by Google's Penguin webspam algorithm. It had nothing whatsoever to do with authorship.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#32

Post by Matt_Cutts »

tgb wrote: post #30
Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

Just trying to decide the politest way to debunk the idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google web rankings. Let's start with correlation != causation: http://xkcd.com/552/ But it would probably be better to point to this 2011 post (also from SEOMoz/Moz) from two years ago in which a similar claim was made about Facebook shares: http://moz.com/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to-influ... . From that blog po…

Which is why all of those points were addressed in the article! In fact, that's why the article didn't make the claim that Google is doing anything unusual in handling G+ links and shares - just that G+ is laid out in a way that makes it more relevant to existing SEO techniques.

Most of the initial discussion on this thread seemed to take from the blog post the idea that more Google +1s led to higher web ranking. I wanted to preemptively tackle that perception.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#33

Post by wisty »

saosebastiao wrote: post #15
lmm wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have more than 90% of the market. The fact that alternatives exist doesn't make them not a monopoly when hardly anyone is using those alternatives. See windows in the late '90s.

Actually, by definition, you are wrong. And you are wrong about 90% of the market as well. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289560/Googles-Search-...

IIRC, Google tends to have more "real" searches. A lot of Bing and Yahoo searches probably have the query string "Facebook" because people have it as the default engine, or are already on a Yahoo / MS property (like their web mail). A lot of these people will then type "Google" into the Bing / Yahoo search box, when they need to find something.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#34

Post by fluidcruft »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #20

Just trying to decide the politest way to debunk the idea that more Google +1s lead to higher Google web rankings. Let's start with correlation != causation: http://xkcd.com/552/ But it would probably be better to point to this 2011 post (also from SEOMoz/Moz) from two years ago in which a similar claim was made about Facebook shares: http://moz.com/blog/does-google-use-facebook-shares-to-influ... . From that blog po…

I agree. Mechanistically, I'd speculate that +1's follow and reinforce pre-existing web rankings. It seems very probable to me that people are most likely to +1 the pages that are found first in web searches (i.e. those that have high rank).

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#35

Post by VLM »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #23
andylei wrote: post #19

1. the correlation is 0.3. that's not a high number. 2. the correlation for facebook likes is 0.27. that's lower, but not by much. 3. its possible the causality runs the other direction: high quality results get more +1s

Yup, I love that the correlation for "Facebook shares, like, comments" (though those are three different things) is listed as 0.03 less, even though I've pointed out multiple times that Facebook doesn't exactly make it easy for Google to crawl Facebook to see that data. Your point #3 is critical: high quality things get more +1s (and tweets, and Facebook likes or comments or shares).

Maybe rephrase "high quality things get more +1s" to "high ranking results get more +1s because they're found more often than low ranking results"

This brings up the interesting question of why other social media is used less for promotion of effective pages. More zombie / spammers / scammers / PR firms manipulating facebook likes than +1s? This seems extremely likely given the known "underground" like-market and incentives WRT FB.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#36

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #26
johnward wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out that Facebook likes don't increasing rankings doesn't debunk Google +1s. Obviously you know if they do or do not affect rankings. I'm not sure you would tell us if they actually were used as a signal in rankings because that would lead SEO's to focus on +1's in a way similar to what happened with pagerank. It could also lead to +1 spamming/exploiting. Not that I'm going to believe you anyway, but I just…

johnward, I know of at least one other SEO that has been doing a more rigorous study of whether more +1s lead to a higher ranking. I suspect that study might come out in the next month or two. Suffice it to say that I would be very skeptical of anyone who claimed that more +1s led to a higher search ranking in Google's web results.

I may be misunderstanding the basics, but the article implies that putting a post onto plus gives you a "perfect" page for SEO. Which means that any links to it will raise it's score more than any other page hosted anywhere else.

(They fail to follow through with posts on G+ are naturally likely to get more +1s than likes, thus presumably debunking the whole correlation issue like you say. But anyway)

So my takeaway (which I am not sure if you are challenging) is that posts on plus.google did better than a presumably control sample on facebook - and the article incorrectly ascribes this to +1s. You seem to be saying, yes it did do better but its not because of +1s, its just better. But is it better content or is it better SEO-ness of the page.

Thats the part I would like to see these studies show - how they manage the control portion. How they control for quality of the content? Because if posting the same content on G+ and on a.n.other site gets you significantly more pagerank, then its really hard to argue not to do that.

(I quite accept the "its not +1's goddammit" argument)

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#37

Post by VLM »

VLM wrote: post #17
wyck wrote: post #7

This makes sense in areas where Google+ is popular, but in North America Google+ is a empty outside online marketers and tech communities, so how can they possible rely on it as a metric.

Wouldn't those two groups be the most heavy users / most interested in search results?

Not understanding why I got downvoted other than a lack of explanation.

A lot of easy "tech" work honestly consists of using google to find answers for people who refuse to use google for themselves. It never fails to amaze me. I was born knowing how to change the battery in a 2nd gen Prius keychain remote? LOL no I merely use a google search because you're too lazy to do it for yourself (or learned hopelessness where they're intentionally outsourcing the labor to me and I'm being the sucker)

I would imagine someone who's annual review consists of how well they've SEO'd their page will be enormously more interested in how well they're doing SEO than a kid writing an essay or a possible future customer, or really anyone else at all. Money is a powerful motivator.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#38

Post by mason240 »

wisty wrote: post #33
saosebastiao wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, by definition, you are wrong. And you are wrong about 90% of the market as well. http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289560/Googles-Search-...

IIRC, Google tends to have more "real" searches. A lot of Bing and Yahoo searches probably have the query string "Facebook" because people have it as the default engine, or are already on a Yahoo / MS property (like their web mail). A lot of these people will then type "Google" into the Bing / Yahoo search box, when they need to find something.

A lot of Google searches come from the same place: having google as the default search engine and then typing in "facebook" rather than "facebook.com"

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#39

Post by nkuttler »

This post highlights some of the reasons why I don't like Google+, and dislike it even more than facebook.

> Posts are crawled and indexed almost immediately

I used to use RSS feeds for quick indexing. Well, I guess we all know how that turned out when G wanted more users for G+.

> Add Google authorship information to your online content

The technique for this really disgusted me the first time I read about it. The easy method is basically linkbaiting to G+, not to mention that no other provider of authorship info is supported. Why do we have microdata again?

> Make your content easy to share on Google+ with relevant social sharing buttons

Yes, no, thanks. More intel and links for G.

> Completely fill out your Google+ profile with relevant and engaging information

Yeah, because people should rather publish good content on G+ than their own sites.

> Make your posts public

Of course, you only get all the benefits if your stuff is public on G+ and generates more traffic for them.

All in all I have to say well done Google. Good for you anyway. And good for people who want to hire a social media.. err.. ninja. Not so good for people who want to publish their own content on their own sites or even other social sites.

Re: Google +1's Correlation with Higher Search Rankings

#40

Post by anon1385 »

Matt_Cutts wrote: post #26
johnward wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pointing out that Facebook likes don't increasing rankings doesn't debunk Google +1s. Obviously you know if they do or do not affect rankings. I'm not sure you would tell us if they actually were used as a signal in rankings because that would lead SEO's to focus on +1's in a way similar to what happened with pagerank. It could also lead to +1 spamming/exploiting. Not that I'm going to believe you anyway, but I just…

johnward, I know of at least one other SEO that has been doing a more rigorous study of whether more +1s lead to a higher ranking. I suspect that study might come out in the next month or two. Suffice it to say that I would be very skeptical of anyone who claimed that more +1s led to a higher search ranking in Google's web results.

I notice that you avoided answering the direct question…
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