Paid likes?
-
Has anyone used paid likes for Google +, Facebook, etc. for liking articles, videos, etc. on your own sites?
Is this a safe, SEO practice?
-
I bought a few facebook likes and it was a waste of money. Users who "liked" my page were fake... I wasn't expecting much from these likes and I did it because I wanted to make my brand new fb page more likeable. You need to start somewhere, right? No one wants to be the first person to "like".
-
Argumentum ad populum - Latin for "appeal to the people". It is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or most people believe it.
"Brand X vacuum cleaners are the country's leading brand; so buy Brand X vacuum cleaners."
-
The only benefit I can see is to make a Facebook page (Google+, etc.) look more popular than it is. If I see a business whose Facebook page has only 45 likes then I'm not as likely to like them. But if they've got several thousand then I subconsciously think, "Hmmm...if this many people like them then they must put good stuff on their facebook page."
Just for fun I bought a thing on fiverr where someone promised to give me more likes by posting my page on their facebook fan page. They claimed to belong to a popular band with tens of thousands of fans. Well, the next day I got 16 extra likes all from people's whose names I couldn't pronounce. When I checked out those fans they were obviously fake accounts that were created just to boost like numbers.
Does it help SEO? No. I do believe that likes on a post can influence your seo. But Google is not dumb. If they see that I wrote a post that is getting hundreds of likes from around the world then they likely will promote my post a little more. But, I think they can tell if I'm getting hundreds of likes from paid sources. If I could look at the Facebook likes I got and automatically tell that they were spam accounts, I'm sure the algo can figure that out as well.
I personally don't think that having extra likes to your Facebook page is going to do anything for your SEO. But, if you have likes that are earned, then this indirectly helps. For example, when I publish an article on my site, I post it to my facebook page. If I have thousands of fans then that is a lot of people who can spread the word about my article.
-
Excellent answers, you both touched on great points which I have always believed in.
If you have something worth Liking / +1 'ing / Re-tweeting, people will do it for you. Your focus should be to deliver the best possible content, features, products, service and let your customers / readers do the rest. Trying to manipulate the system buy throwing money at it won't be good in the long run.
-
You may be missing the point of online recomendations. It's to increase referral traffic. Buying likes and +1's will most likely be done by a spam farm and nobody hears their screams.
Also, Google+ is a Google product, and you can bet they'll be able to spot the 'user farms' that may spring up due to the popularity of '+1 buying'.
If content is worth sharing, then users will share. If not, then might be worth trying to figure out what sort of content users will share.
In my opinion, this is not a safe, nor reliable, SEO practice.
-
Never done it, but I would say no.
The benefits of Social, in my opinion do not come from a one time like or one time + It is the continuation of creating a genuine following that is niche related and active in your community.
Of course like most things in Search Engine Land, it could greatly help you until Google or Facebook picks up on the footprint. So I guess it is a gamble really. One that I personally would never take cause what benefits are you going to get from a bunch of irrelevant one time likes in the social sphere from accounts that are probably loners, or already on the spam radar?
I guess if you use it as a "starter" for a really great infographic, video or piece of content, it might help with initial exposure, then the REAL signals may carry you but still in my opinion it is a gamble and probably a waste of money that could be put into a real strategy instead of a shortcut.
w00t!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Facebook Likes, Google +1s tactic - is this a good idea
Hello, For our eCommerce site, we're considering doing the following: When people call in to place an order by phone, we take their order and tell them while we have them on the phone that if they click the Facebook Like button and Google +1 button on our site's home page, we'll knock $3 off their total. We would just show them where the buttons are and refresh our screen to make sure the count went up by one like and one +1 when the customer said that they pressed the buttons. Then, we would continue with their phone order and just knock off $3.00 I may not do this just because it may be grey hat, but it seems 100% safe forever. If you recommend against doing this, can you think of any 100% white hat way to do the same thing? Thanks.
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
Facebook Like Button vs Like Box
We want to add the Facebook Like and Google Plus One functionality to our website but had a question. Is it better for SEO and usability to use a global Facebook Like Button for people to Like the home page of our website or a Facebook Like Box to Like our Facebook page from our website? I know that we can specify the URL in the Like Button but I wanted to get some feedback. Thanks!
Social Media | | Prager0 -
Facebook Likes, What are your thoughts on people begging for them?
Hi There, I'm seeing more and more businesses (especially small businesses) setting up Facebook pages and then almost begging people to like them with lines such as "lets see if we can get to 200 likes", etc etc. What are your thoughts on this does it really help and do you think Google will find a way to not count them as spammy?
Social Media | | Ant710 -
Facebook Like button on website: which "URL to Like"? Website or Facebook Page?
Hello, I have a question about the Facebook Like Button. We we are setting up a Like Button to put on the top page of our website (300 likes) However, we already have a Facebook Page (1000 likes). Now, in the set up of the button, we need to decide which "URL to Like" and I really do cannot realize which one is best. Do you think we should use the url of our website or the url of our Facebook Page? Why? Thank you in advance for your help, Dario
Social Media | | Darioz0 -
Facebook Like Quick Question
What is best practice for the Facebook like button, when a user clicks on like on your webpage should this go to your facebook page our should it contain your website url? The reason being is that on my homepage it shows as 5 likes but when going to my facebook page it is only showing 1 like? So where are the other 4 likes going? Any ideas on what is going wrong or what I have set up wrong? The like box is on http://www.cheapfindergames.com/xbox360 My Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cheapfinder/129888913795351
Social Media | | ocelot0 -
Facebook likes v fans
Hello, When I look at my site in opensiteexplorer it says my site has 79 Facebook "likes". But actually, it has 4,070. In another part of the PRO dashboard it correctly identifies 4,070 but calls them "fans". I thought if someone hit the "like" button they became "fans". So why is SEOmoz reporting the vastly different figures?
Social Media | | greenwich0 -
Focus Facebook Likes and +1 to URL or Page?
We are considering adding the +1 and facebook like widget to the footer of all our pages, but we can't decide whether to point them to our URL or to our respective Google Plus / Facebook Page. Ideally, we would prefer poiting them to our pages instead of our site URL, but I'm not so sure if we would get as much SEO advantage that way. I was looking for feedback towards the SEO advantages / disadvantages of this at what strategy you guys use. For example: Having +1 our URL would be shown to their friends at the organic results. Having +1 our page would grow our profile, allowing us to communicate with them and would also enable people search +Duplika at Google (like it happens with big brands). What do you suggest?
Social Media | | Juanzo0 -
Is there any online tool you can suggest for monitoring facebook activities such as shares - likes etc
I just wonder if there is any online monitoring tool - application for Facebook activities..
Social Media | | merkal20050