Links Possibly Not All-Important: Mentions May be Sufficient
For years a major part of Google’s success was based on its ability to determine the popularity of a particular web page based on the amount of links to the page. This is still a huge factor for search engine ranking. But there’s mounting evidence that links may not be the only way to count digital “votes.”
There is mounting evidence that Google is paying attention to more than just links: mere mentions of brands or products on the web can count towards the popularity of a brand or site, even if there was no link created.
The argument from a writer over at Search Engine Land is that this is necessary because of recent changes to the web’s constituency. There are so many users on the web now who don’t have websites but are engaged on different social networks and other places they post/create content, that Google has had to shift its algorithm to take even mentions of a product or brand as a digital “vote” for a company in order to more accurately measure popularity.
It makes sense. And this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this.
So the next time you’re on Facebook making a recommendation to a friend, you may be helping a company’s website rank higher than others. It certainly feels good to use our power of influence as consumers to help identify the best companies, but this can be manipulated as well. It will be interesting to learn more about how this works as details come to light.
[Image credit: Flickr user dhammza]
Tags: Google, seo, social media