Is Twitter Stealing Our Link Juice?
-
Something recently clicked in my mind when looking at the way our web developers were linking to our twitter accounts:.
They were linking like this: A) https://twitter.com/#!/aczarto
Instead of like this: B) https://twitter.com/aczarto
(Due to a copy/paste from the address bar).Technically (A) is a link to the homepage of twitter and NOT to the individual twitter account as in **(B) **(The hash tag isn't technically part of the url, and traditionally Google has ignored everything after the hashtag)
For me, this raises a few thoughts/comments:
- Make sure your web team is linking in (B) format and not just copy pasting the url when they visit your company's twitter page.
- I don't think twitter is doing this on purpose - but if they are - it is EVIL GENIUS! They are stealing lots of links heading into a user's account page and instead sending that link juice to their home page.
- Does Google-bot follow hash tags? ie: When Google hits the link (A), does it crawl twitter.com/ or does it crawl twitter.com/#!/aczarto?
- Is this a tactic that can be leveraged by others to try and direct links to other pages? ie: MyWebStore.com/money-page/#show-link-bait that generates shares that actually produce links to the site's money page instead of the intended link-bait.
- Could this be possibly considered cloaking?
Looking forward to people's thoughts...
-
I don't think so. Twitter helps a lot to get social signals for pages. I did this for my page of horse that hosted on WordPress.
-
Very cool. I've added a screen shot just in case the SERPs change at a later date.
-
lol....no it was not intentional....:)
without.....but when you click on them both are listed with the #!.
Yesterday for some reason my twitter account rankings went through the roof and I am ranked for many keywords for my twitter account now. I am not sure what happened but am very happy about it.
-
Could you provide a link to the SERP or a screenshot? I only see the non-hashtag version:
Also, the links you provided above link to the @OrthoJobs twitter account -- Is that intentional?
-
both of mine are listed on twitter. for example. @ horsebuggy shows up as
-
Horse Buggy
<cite>twitter.com/horsebuggy</cite>Sign up for Twitter to follow Horse Buggy (@_HorseBuggy_). Horse Buggy is the Leading provider of**...**
-
<cite>https://twitter.com/#!/HorseBuggy</cite>Sign up for Twitter to followk HorseBuggy.net (@_HorseBuggy_). Leading provider of Horse Buggies.....
-
-
Figured out the answers from this SERP:
Notice how the SEER Interactive twitter account is listed like this: https://twitter.com/#!/seerinteractive (likely because that's how they link to it from their homepage: http://www.seerinteractive.com/)
And not like this: https://twitter.com/seerinteractiveSo the answers to the questions above are:
- It doesn't matter which format you use as Google understands that this is a special case URL, and will include the hashtag in the spidered URL. But, you may still have canonical link issues and splitting of link juice.
- Link juice is going to your twitter account page regardless of how you link. Twitter is not stealing link juice to it's homepage.
- Google has a special case for Twitter - With twitter URLS, Google will consider the hashtag to be part of the URL.
- This tactic could be leveraged by others, but it would be considered cloaking. It is not cloaking in Twitter's case, as Google recognizes the URL as a unique url.
Hope someone found this interesting. (I did!)
Alex
-
I put my twitter url on a directory and it was not working...so they changed it.
They sent me the following message.
The following changes have been made:
** Twitter Id changing from http://twitter.com/widget to http://twitter.com/#!/widget
Should I have them change it to something else?
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 mobile link
I have a weird issue that I just cant fathom so I thought I'd ask you guys. One of my clients sites: positivepathfoudation.org has social bookmarks as we all do but the Facebook link when clicked on mobile (I have ios) shows a broken link when the address is correct and works when opened in desktop. Anyone have any ideas?
Social Media | | Libra_Photographic0 -
Links to Social Media accounts, rel=nofollow/follow and rel=me
Hi guys, I just saw this rel="me" attribute and I can't find any reputable recent (within last year) information. I never heard of this and wonder if it's any beneficial in any way. At the same time, should I use nofollow or follow on links from website to social accounts? I've heard different opinions but, again, no recent relevant and trustworthy information. Please, kick me into right direction. However, when kicking, please give me some proof, rather than thoughts 🙂 Thanks!
Social Media | | DmitriiK0 -
Linkedin "company website" link - any value?
Hi So, on Linkedin, I can put my company website. I've been trying to figure out if this is a nofollow, or do follow - or, not even really a link. Here's how it appears in my profile's source code Websites <a target="_blank" <strong="">href="/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmaxvape%2Ecom&urlhash=MtlQ&trk=ppro_website">Company Website</a> Is this even a "link"? I'm guessing the way it is built, no it's not even a nofollow link. Secondly, does anyone know any good link-juice you can get form Linkedin. Thanks!
Social Media | | Ted_Cullen0 -
Sharing images on twitter
Hi, I want to start sharing images on Twitter, because our industry regulator (FCA) suggests it's possible to share more info about complicated financial products (we are a mortgage broker) where you can't get all the detail needed in 140 characters to be 'clear, fair and not misleading'... I have been thinking about putting mortgage info in images to be shared, but the problem I can foresee is if the rate gets withdrawn by the lender, and the image is already out there (hopefully being shared), it's still our responsibility (according to the FCA guidelines anyway), and we'd be misleading people (unintentionally, but still...) ... It's all a bit of a minefield! So... If the image is hosted on our server and we just change the content of the image but not its file name, location etc... it should update, right? BUT is this even possible? As far as I can tell Twitter only lets you upload an image for sharing (so the image is displayed) and doesn't display images you're hosting... If anyone can tell me how to do this I'd be very grateful... If it's not possible, please also let me know 🙂 Thanks! Amelia
Social Media | | CommT0 -
How do search engines understand what social pages are official pages of my brand? If my Facebook page name is not my brand name (even though there are links from website to page and vice-versa) will that confuse search engines?
My question is about social shares, and how search engines understand what profiles are linked to what businesses?
Social Media | | PlanetDISH0 -
Buzz Bundle by www.link-assistant.com
Does anyone have some feedback on Buzz Bundle software? I am wondering whether using this package to create 100 personas to create your own social media buzz is really going to help with rankings. The idea "feels wrong" but ... Regards, Andrew http://www.link-assistant.com/buzzbundle/
Social Media | | andrewjd0 -
How to get a link on Twitter box in Huffington Post?
Hey guys, got a question about the Huffington Post and its Twitter widget - see screenshot attached HuffPo seems to be aggregating links somehow under the "Top links on this topic" heading within the Twitter widget. At first I thought this was an official Twitter wdget; http://twitter.com/about/resources/widgets However, I can't find it on Twitter's site and I'm starting to think it's a custom widget possibly developed by HuffPo themselves. My question is how do I get my site to rank under their "Top links"? Is it feeding on Twitter presence or is it feeding from Google News or through something else? Many thanks in advance for any light shed on this topic Edit: Link to Huffington Post page example from screenshot Screen%252520shot%2525202011-10-24%252520at%25252017.26.54.png
Social Media | | JDauncey0 -
Why are the crawls not picking up my twitter account?
Hello everybody, For some reason, both the google crawler and the SEO Moz crawler are not picking up a twitter account I am using with my site. Maybe I am doing something wrong? My website is http://www.compare4me.ie and the twitter account is http://twitter.com/#!/compare4me Thanks in advance.
Social Media | | compare4me0