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 to Push Free Offer for Links, Likes and Shares.
I have been working with a UK based printing company for a while now. We have had some good success, ranking well for most of our target phrases. One thing we do is to offer select Graphic Designers and Illustrators free business cards. Last year we approached a load of Designers and Illustrators (sourced via followerwonk) and printed cards for them, but we have run out of suitable candidates. One particular problem is that if the designers don’t need cards at that moment in time, the offer is forgotten about. Any Ideas how we can give the offer a lift? Let me know your thoughts. Justin
Social Media | | GrouchyKids0 -
Changing FaceBook Username / url - do you retain your likes/fans
hi just a quickie, anyone know off hand when you change your FB username/url do you retain or lose the likes/fans ? cheers dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Increasing likes on Facebook - Strategies
What local strategies has anybody used in the past to boost the local likes of a Facebook page. The business concerned is a home improvements company covering a geographical area of the UK. What I would like to do is try and increase the number of likes from our potential target audience in cities and towns that we cover. I don't think Facebook ads are the right choice as many users just ignore them, but would be interested in online and offline marketing strategies that could be used to boost numbers to our Facebook page. The reason this is so important especially in the home improvement space is that most projects are awarded on word of mouth recommendations, so Facebook is the perfect platform.
Social Media | | ocelot0 -
Number of Facebook likes and shares for a webpage went significantly down.
I noticed that a bunch of "likes" and "shares" had gone down for a webpage I do marketing for, and I wanted to see if anyone had also experienced this. About two years ago, I realized that when I would send a FB message with a link to a webpage I was promoting, the number of shares and likes for the page would go up by one. So, thinking that I had stumbled onto something incredible, I proceeded to message over 500 people on facebook with a link to the webpage. Soon enough, I had increased the likes and shares displayed on the webpage to 635 (as shown in the Digg Digg plugin). Today, I went back to the same page and realized the number of shares and likes had gone down to 160. Has anyone experienced a drop in the number of shares and likes, and has anyone increased their likes and shares by sending a message with a link to a webpage being marketed? (You can test this out by messaging someone in facebook with a single link to webpage that displays the number of facebook "likes" and "shares" -Once you send the message the number should go up by one) Thanks
Social Media | | 1activator0 -
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 -
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 -
Google+ what's it like?
"Google+ is in limited Field TrialAt the moment, we're testing with a small number of people, but it won't be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone. Leave us your email address and we'll make sure that you're the first to know when we're ready to invite more people.[Keep Me Posted] btnAlready invited? We've temporarily exceeded our capacity. Please try again soon."Is there anything i can do to get it working so i can get a taste of the google+?
Social Media | | mosaicpro0 -
Roundup of Facebook Share & Facebook Like. Which one is better for SEO?
There doesn't seem to be clear cut advice / data on whether Facebook Share or Facebook Like is more valuable from an SEO standpoint. So I'm asking you SEOmoz fans have you come across conclusive evidence or have your own sites / testes proven that one is stronger than the other.
Social Media | | walidalsaqqaf0