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
-
Wow, I can get a lot of Facebook likes quickly!
I did some testing with Facebook ads and resulting Facebook likes on target pages. And something is wrong! Just after creating the ad, before the ad was approved, I could get many likes on the target page without even seeing any traffic on server logs or google analytics. I documented my tests here. I repeated the tests 6 times, every time I could get tens of likes on the target page within seconds and without any approval of the ad. These pages have little traffic and there's no way these likes could have been natural! Everyone I reported was able to reproduce it, try yourself. A little update. I found others reporting un-expected Likes pouring... But at least they were "running" the ad, so externals to Facebook could have seen it and decided to Like it to later offer "liking" service as reported from this fellow. But in my case the ad was not approved... So... Who can see it beside me and Facebook?
Social Media | | max.favilli1 -
Facebook Like button and Google plus
I can't believe that I still did not figure out what would be the best way to have facebook like button and google plus on the home page. I have tried several options but I was always receiving errors in W3 validator. Can somebody help please? Thank you Iris
Social Media | | Rebeca10 -
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 -
Anyone just see a massive drop in URL Likes on their websites?
I just saw a big drop in Facebook URL Likes on my clients' websites. Has anyone else seen this too? Looks like Facebook is cleaning out the SPAM Likes.
Social Media | | Francisco_Meza0 -
Facbook like button - where to?
Hey I own a few websites and always wondering whats better in terms of SEO. Having a like button directed to my website or having it directed to a fan page of my website. Looks like most Seo tools count the "directed to website". is it because its easier? or is it because its better to SEO? Thanks Idoz
Social Media | | Idoz0 -
Facebook "like" discrepancy
This is a pretty stupid question sorry, but hopefully it is easy to resolve: Both OSE and Woorank list our site as having 17 Facebook likes. The Facebook icon on the page shows 92 likes. Our Facebook Page shows 560 likes. Where is the 17 number coming from?? our page is: http://www.GoldMaxUSA.com/ Thanks, Jason
Social Media | | JFritton1 -
Facebook like box error
Hello, Using the following code to display a facebook like box http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-NLP-Coaching-Institute-of-California/187804434598142" data-width="198" data-height="320" data-show-faces="true" data-stream="false" data-header="true"> Getting "log in to see this content" when we're not logged in. Our Age setting is set to 13+ example image attached Thanksfacebook-error.gif
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
How to get Facebook likes?
Hello, Complete newbie here so please be kind, We are a brand new business based in the UK selling natural/organic hair and skin care products, we have been going about 5 weeks, we are really struggling to get people to like our facebook page! we simply dont know where or how to get people to like it! I mean the right kind of people, i am sure we could buy likes or send people to it that are not really into natural beauty products! so the question is, how do we get our likes up for relevant traffic? Thanks Daniel 🙂
Social Media | | LushDuck0