Google_ for Business_ How Google's Social Network Changes Everything - Chris Brogan [70]
Shifting Sands
Rand Fishkin, CEO and co-founder of SEOMoz, is another search engine expert I admire and frequently read. One of my favorite projects that Rand does is Whiteboard Friday, where he and others shoot videos that talk about SEO and explain it to us novices. I can then talk to other people who do know about SEO, tell them these things I see in the videos, and seem like I know enough to get help. It works for me.
When I asked Rand for his thoughts, it was clear that he didn’t want to be pinned down in a book about how Google+ impacts search because everything moves so quickly. (I understand this sentiment because this is the first time I’ve ever written about a software platform in any depth, and I’m naturally nervous about how much will change in the next several months.) But Rand’s response is useful because it lets us know that we have to stay alert about how Google experiments with search and the impact that Google+ has.
Here’s what Rand says:
“As of today, Google+ directly influences the rankings of pages and sites in Google in two ways. First, pages shared on the Google+ social network appear to be crawled and indexed by Google’s search engine very quickly (within an hour, often faster). Second, pages that are +1’d may appear higher in the rankings to anyone in your Google “social network,” which can include connections from Google+ itself, as well as Twitter, Facebook, Quora, LinkedIn, and others.
Some important caveats do apply, though. Google has been rapidly experimenting with and changing how +1 and the Google+ network influence rankings (when, where, how, through whom, and so on). The most direct impact on rankings through +1s in a searcher’s “social network” also seem to be far stronger closer to the time of that +1 and sometimes (though not consistently) fade away thereafter. Google+ and the use of social data in search results are still both in their infancy, and professionals in the search + social marketing spheres anticipate plenty of changes ahead.”
Simply by posting a link to a page on Google+, you influence how quickly that page is found by Google (the search engine) and how rapidly someone might find that page through searching the web. Sometimes, speed is of the essence. If you want to take advantage of news, for instance, as a catalyst for selling a product, you might find this is a useful piece of information. But in any case, getting your page indexed and crawled by Google faster is a benefit. It lets people find you sooner instead of later.
Remember also that Google has implemented the +1 button as something to be used all over the web, and not only on Google+. Some of the information Google collects and weighs comes from this, as well, so that’s not covered in what you do inside of Google+. This search engine stuff is tricky.
How People Come to Matter
Brian Chappell wrote an interesting article about how Google+ might or might not impact SEO (http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/seo/google-plus-seo/). The most evident and interesting point is that Google+ is trying to solve the challenge of understanding how people pass trusted information versus how sites and pages pass information. Brian says this about Circles, for instance: “Basically Circles can be seen as a vote for people, like links are a vote for websites. This enables Google to better understand the influencers within its network.”
Simply understanding who you’ve added to your circles (and who have added you to theirs) tells Google more about who you trust and how you