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
-
How i can lose likes (from facebook) on a category page
Hello guys, Look i have here a stupid problem:
Social Media | | Shanaki
somehow i lost likes from facebook, i don't know how. And that is between 27 January till 23 February. You can see here a open site explorer check : check it here . And today (23 February) i have only 1 (witch is mine) please check picture here: check it here . Can somebody tell how i can lose likes ? :))) you can check it live here: https://wo-men.ro/huse-iphone-6 i just put a bar in idea of Hello bar :)) With respect,
Shanaki0 -
How to migrate social likes when moving blog domain?
Hi, Our blog currently is hosted at wordpress.com and we are planning to move it under mysite.com/blog. I've noticed that at the moment in the existing individual articles there are social likes for the reader to likes/follow the page. And we do have some likes from these social buttons e.g. in a particular article I receive 4 twitter likes/5 facebook likes from those social media buttons after the article body. After moving the blog would the articles lose the social likes? How would I manage it not to? I know that there is a wordpress plugin available to purchase: http://store.wordpress.com/premium-upgrades/redirect/ If I purchase it would it resolve my problem? Please help Thanks!
Social Media | | LauraHT0 -
Friends who like same Facebook page not showing correctly
I have a strange thing going on with my Facebook pages. The "friends who also like this page" is showing wrong numbers, just 1 respectively 5. In reality this number must be much higher. When I saw a profile of someone who coincidentally liked both pages, the numbers of friends who also liked those pages said 30 respectively 48. I remembered that a while ago I changed categories of at least one of those pages. So now I just checked that theory and changed the category of one of those pages back: The 1 went up to 26. When going back to the category I have right now, it's back to 1. Does anyone have an idea of how to fix this, kind of merge those numbers?
Social Media | | codebalancer0 -
Best Way to Build up Likes
Hello, What's the best ways to build up "Likes" on Facebook. A friend of mine wanted to buy likes and I'd like to give him an alternative. We're in the personal development training industry. We have a nice website 110 Likes No twitter or Google+ large number of past customers. The strategies have to be very non-abrasive as our fan base really cares a lot about us. In other words, it's not the kind of audience you can send mass messages to or do anything that would seem like sales or advertising. Thanks!
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
"Likes" on a photo gallery
From my understanding its best to get likes on a website rather then from within the Facebook page for SEO purposes. What is better to set up a photo gallery with a like button on each image so that every URL gets liked separately for each image or having a like button for the entire gallery. 10 likes on one page or 1 like on 10 pages?
Social Media | | SEODinosaur0 -
Best Joomla Facebook LIke Box Plugin
Hello, We want a like box that shows up like the one attached. We've tried several plugins for Joomla 1.6 and none show up consistently in all browsers. Which one do you recommend? like-box-for-seomoz-question.gif
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
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 -
SEO & Social | More SEO effect by liking the page URL rather than the Facebook Page?
SEOMoz Gurus, I am wondering what our best implementation strategy shoul dbe around linking up the Facebook Like button on our pages. Essentially there are two options: A) Linking the button directly to the Facebook Page of the web site so every Like is actually converting into a Facebook "Fan" which can be messaged going forward through our Facebook page. B) Having them like the actual URL which might be more beneficial from an SEO and viral perspective as now a link to the actual URL gets shared on the Liker's facebook wall and it should also be easier to use that lIke for Google & Co. as it's tied to the actual URL not a random Facebook page given that search engines already convert those signals. Both approaches obviously have their benefits. Are there any common guidelines on what is a better approach to take from a pure SEO perspective? Thanks /Thomas
Social Media | | tomypro0