Facebook Name Change and Effect on SEO

[wearehappymedia]

Hey Mozzers!

Trying this one again as my timing was probably pretty bad with Easter.

Working with a company who has about 20K followers on Facebook and about 500 backlinks to their current facebook page. They want to change the name of the page to better reflect the business. I need to advise on this but I'm not sure of and how it will effect them.

Any one had any experience in this area?

[RobertFisher]

Rafi,

Did you mean 20,000 likes? If so, then I am not sure what the worry is unless there is a ton of engagement on the Facebook page. I am not a social media expert but know a bit. I will tell you that there are thousands of companies that have bought gazillions of likes and they are not an accurate measure of anything IMO for that reason. If you look at things like amplification, conversation, applause, etc. you get a better idea as to the value of your social media campaign.

Before I change the page, I would investigate to see if people are truly engaging with the content on the page or if it is simply a company that heard they should be "doing social media." All too often that is the case and the social media has little real value for them. If they are in that category and a new name makes sense then change it and go for engagement.

Hope that helps,

Robert

[OlegKorneitchouk]

He also mentioned 500 backlinks to the Facebook page, which I will assume aren't crappy. If they are legit, I would try to avoid changing the Facebook URL. Maybe you create a separate FB page and outreach to the webmasters and ask them to update the URL (or better yet, link back to your website instead). Later on, you can merge the two pages.

[RobertFisher]

I am not sure how he is getting backlink data for the facebook page or if it is in some way real what value that has as a social media page. I took two very well known companies and tried to run backlinks for their facebook url and in both open site explorer and ahrefs cannot get that data.

Do you know how to get backlink data for a Facebook page?

I look forward to hearing more.

[OlegKorneitchouk]

Majestic provides data for FB pages.

To your point, a backlink from a high authority FB page may be weighted more than one from a new/fake one.

[RobertFisher]

He was talking of links to the Facebook page. Thanks

[OlegKorneitchouk]

yeah, if you search for a facebook page on majestic, it will return backlinks to that specific page. you're right about that not being the case for OSE.

[wearehappymedia]

yep that's right you can get data on links to your facebook page