Since the time that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter became popular, or in other words went viral, many people who are related to search marketing have been wondering about the role they play in Google search rankings.
Although most of the leading social networks have added the “rel=_nofollow” attribute to the links posted on them by the users, many still believe that these websites play a role in Google’s search algorithms. The search engine optimizers at TastyPlacement has conducted a simple test to see if that is true.
They created 6 websites in 6 similar sized cities in the USA. All the websites were in the same niche, and the domain names were chosen by combining the name of the city and the service they provided (ex: www.city-home-service.com) . The test was done after 10 months from the setup of the websites. And the results show how each of their Google ranking changed after 1 month of the test.
Here are the results of the test:
- 1st website – got 70 Facebook shares and increased the number of “likes” on a connected business page by 50, and showed 6.9 rise in its Google SERP position
- 2nd website – got 50 tweets and retweets containing a link pointing to the homepage and showed 2.88 rise in its Google SERP position
- 3rd website – got 1000 Twitter followers to a twitter account linked to the website and showed 1.22 fall in its Google SERP position
Control
- The website that was used as the control, which did not engage in any social media activity showed a 0.11 fall in its Google SERP position within the month
