Do having social sharing icons such as Twitter and Pinterest slow down site speed?
-
We are debating a redesign of a travel site and wondering whether having social sharing buttons including Pinterest and Facebook above each image would slow down site speed and therefore have a negative impact on our rankings. We are deciding between having the icons above each image or just in the side bar of all pages. Many thanks, Penny
-
I did not test all combinations, but I did determine that it's faster to select the subset that your visitors will use and not to load the myriad of fluff icons.
Best,
Christopher -
Christopher, did you test add this against using say Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest tools all separately? Many need to include 4 to 5 different social media tools, and loading each one of them separately in my experience has typically always been more of a burden on the cover than using even add this.
I think I myself actually moved into primarily using ShareThis, but that only had to do with liking their look and feel better for various projects.
-
Yes, the vendor you use (e.g. AddThis), the features you use (e.g. number of likes), and number of icons you use (e.g. FB, Twitter, G+) can affect the performance of your page. FWIW, I dropped AddThis because it was much too slow. YMMV. I recommend testing several vendors and feature settings. Also, you should retest the page performance periodically.
Best,
Christopher -
I have in fact seen a slow down in performance but it depends on how and where you're placing them. I don't think the slow down has ever been enough to have an impact on your rankings, but I've seen situations where it would annoy a visitor.
I've had better luck using the 3rd party services like AddThis or ShareThis. Sure they have limitations, but for me at least they seem to perform a bit better in terms of speed than if you're using Facebook or Twitter's tools directly (and separately).
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
-
Do we need to post unique content on every Social media website?
Can we use the same content (description) for FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ etc?
Social Media | | bondhoward1 -
Social Media: Industry with no apparent engagement?
Hey Mozzzzzzzzzzzzzzers! I work for a high end rehab. We have a Facebook page with 800 fans, twitter with 5,500 followers, and a linkedIn with around 1,000. I noticed that the previous CEO probably bought our twitter followers, so that explains our minimal engagement. The part I am having a hard time grasping is that all of our competitors, including the big guns in the industry are struggling as well. I see numbers like these all the time: 30,000 facebook fans with posts getting 5/6 likes and a comment here and there. 7,000 twitter followers with every 10th tweet getting 1 or 2 favorites, a RT is a blue moon Experts in the industry with high blog views, high credibility in their field, huge fan base, and engagement like the engagement above. If I look back since 2005, we have accrued 250,000 hits on our website... 236 are from facebook. Our best month was last year in December and I honestly can't figure out why, there was nothing done differently. I am a firm believer that if there is no audience then it's not worth the time. That being said, I can't help but think we are all missing something in the addiction field. I guess my questions are: What do I do in an industry where there appears to be minimal engagement across the board? (Dr. Drew doesn't count.) When do you/have you decided to cut your losses on social media and just use it as a place to have representation and not as a place to drive profit? Is there always a way to get engagement? Do you believe some industries are just doomed? (That's an unfair question isn't it?) Anyway, just food for thought. Would love to hear your opinions! I also would love to know about any marketing and or social media forums you all participate in that I can direct some of the more social media/marketing specific questions towards. I don't want to make things too convoluted. Thanks everybody!
Social Media | | HashtagHustler0 -
Google+1 on site or on google+ for SEO?
Hi Have just read an inspiring post by Cyrus @ www.seomoz.org/blog/tips-to-use-google-for-seo But before I ask my existing social media contacts and email lists who have a Google account to +1 my site, what offers most benefit from a search visibility perspective? Should I ask my contacts to +1 my homepage (there is a +1 button on there) or Click on the +1 button on my businesses Google+ page and also ask them to join my circles? Hope this makes sense? Many Thanks
Social Media | | ocelot0 -
Facebook Shares/Likes: Does the users location matter for location specific keywords?
Hi, Basically if I was going after a location specific keyword, so lets say 'dry cleaners london' would Facebook likes/shares from users' who's location settings in Facebook are set to London work better then say someone in a different country or does it hold the same weight social signals wise?
Social Media | | activitysuper0 -
Are links from Pinterest 'do follow'/do they have any SEO benefit?
Afternoon all, I know there is a question about Pinterest that was asked in February but I guess it was a fairly new beast then and people were still unsure about its use for marketing/SEO etc. I run an events business and on our Pinterest profile I tend to pin random stuff I find on the net, themes we are running (directly from our website) and other Pinterest users. I have received several 're-pins' and people are really starting to follow us now. What I am keen to know is whether or not having lots of followers/re-pins on Pinterest has the same effectiveness from an SEO perspective as having lots of Facebook/Twitter/Google+ followers and whether or not these re-pins are 'do follow' links or have any SEO benefit whatsoever? Many thanks Rob ps: Pinterest page is http://pinterest.com/eventa/ , if anyone has any tips on how to better utilize this then that would also be greatly appreciated 🙂
Social Media | | RobertHill0 -
Do social signals pass through a 301 redirect?
Does value from social signals have the ability to pass through a 301 redirect?
Social Media | | SEOmoxy0 -
How to best promote this content via social media to gain backlinks
I have created this content http://www.musicliveuk.com/live-music/the-worst-function-bands-and-wedding-bands-ever in order to promote it via social media. Ideally I want it to be shared across the web in order to gain backlinks. My question is how can I best do this? I know I can post it on twitter, facebook, google plus etc... but is that it? I'm new to social media and don't really understand how to use it to good effect. By posting it on social networking sites am I risking people copying the content and duplicate content penalties? Any help would be much appreciated!
Social Media | | SamCUK0 -
I just discovered something about Addthis shares, Twitter, and rel-canonical.
Let's say I have a page on my site with the url www.mydomain.com/page1.php?id=234. Let's say it can be accessed by the url www.mydomain.com/page-this-is-a-keyword-rich-url And let's say that the second example is what I have set as my rel-canonical. I wondered what would happen when people submitted the non-canonical url to twitter. We know that Twitter shares count for something in SEO. I didn't want things to go to waste if people were landing on my short urls and sharing them on Twitter. Well, tonight, I shared one of my own urls on Twitter. I was accidentally on the short one (not the canonical), but when I shared it via addthis the long one was shared. So, Addthis must read the canonical and use this to share. Very cool. At least to me. I may possibly be the only person on the planet that understands what I just wrote, but this is a neat discovery for me.
Social Media | | MarieHaynes5