Social Signals Inquiry Regarding Competitor
-
There is a competitor in my sites industry, and per various tools like opensitexplorer, quicksprout, and searchmetrics, they have an evenly amount of massive (100k+ per page) facebook social signals (likes, shares, comments) to around 25-50 of their top pages on their site.
They have no social media presence in terms of a fan page, and they rank on the first page for almost every single keyword that is niche related.
How could it be possible to naturally have the same number of facebook social signals to all of your top pages?
What have they done to even accomplish this, and is it only a matter of time before Google recognizes the black hat tactics they've put in place to manipulate the search engines?
-
Since it is shares and likes in a matching number for each page it sounds like the probably bought a service from a site like Fiverr to give them a certain amount of shares, follows, re-tweets, etc. They could also be using a program like Synnd to automatically get social shares.
Either way, I wouldn't spend much time worrying about it.
-
Without much more information, I can only say that Google isn't likely to ban a site manipulating signals they don't appear to value. Keep checking on the organic side.
-
Id prefer to keep the competitor and industry confidential. These aren't followers that they have, it's shares likes and comments to their top pages on their site. The same total number of these signals are going to each top page per ose and search metrics.
-
This is really broad. Can you give me the industry? How about the competitor?
Google 'dialed down' 'social signals' a couple years ago. Social is almost nil if all they're doing is buying followers. You're far more likely to find an answer on the organic side.
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 expect Google+ to continue being an important ranking signal after its recent changes?
I've noticed that Google Plus seems to have a larger influence on ranking than other social networks, especially for one of our competitors. We haven't started using Google Plus, and I'm wondering if, from an SEO standpoint, it's worth putting energy into after last month's changes. TL;DR: After last month's changes, is Google Plus still an important ranking signal?
Social Media | | 4RS_John1 -
Redirect social media links to https?
Hi fellow SEO-ers! One of the sites I'm responsible for uses a Twitter or Facebook feed on most of their pages, next to their unique content. As the tweets (twits?) and comments in some of these feeds are old, they still refer to the old Twitter and Facebook-domains using http (instead of https). These links are all automatically 301-redirected, but still make up ca. 9% of the links on the site. Do you think that this affects SEO? I doubt it, because I suppose that Google has seen this many times and understands that these links are still pointing to the same content. Although my client is prepared to write a script to auto-update all these links, I think it won't make a difference. What do you think? Thanks for your feedback!
Social Media | | corusent0 -
Crawling of Social data
Just a quick inquisitive question. Websites like Facebook and Twitter arent public, they obviously allow a page title and snippet of account info in search results. So how are is social metrics gathered as regards to Tweets or Shares or Likes etc. in crawling data gathering? Would this give some insite how best to share social media too?
Social Media | | xtopher660 -
Do Your Social Metrics Such As Tweets Transfer With a 301?
Got asked this today, and I don't know the answer, so throwing it out there to all your mozzers! If I 301 redirect a page that has built up a lot of tweets, likes, shares, even +1's, does that social data get transferred over to the new page in as far as social strength/ authority is concerned? Would Google still be able to see the previous version of this page had x amount of tweets etc, and take this into consideration when ranking the new page?
Social Media | | PerchDigital0 -
Social Media Signals with AddThis?
Good day guys, Just a quick question. By having the AddThis sharing tool to share content such as blogs, does it still send the same social signals to Google as you would get by having the official Facebook/Twitter plug-ins? Regards
Social Media | | Michael-Goode0 -
What are your top 3 social bookmarking and social networking sites for Ecommerce?
I am trying to figure out the best social bookmarking and social networking sites to use for my eCommerce sites. Often in the social bookmarking platforms posting a review or a product is instantly considered spam. I know that having links from these types of sites are important but I don't want to come across as spam. What creative solutions do you use for this challenge?
Social Media | | purch0 -
Social Media For Doctors Office Help!
I have a client that I am doing web-work for...I recommended for him to claim his Facebook Place page as well as create a twitter account. He's a little skeptical and doesn't think that a doctors office needs a Facebook and twitter page. I strongly disagree with him and would like to show him some facts. Has anyone ever done social media for a doctors office before or know where I can get some good information? Thanks in advance!
Social Media | | christinarule0 -
Social Media and Outbounds...
I have two sites I can get a link to my site on. The first has 10 outbounds all to facebook. The other has ten links to ten different sites. Assuming the sites are in every way equivalent apart from in that way which site gives me more juice if I add a link to my own site?
Social Media | | Turkey0