Opensite Explorer

[BridalHotspot]

It may sound like a stupid question but what kind of likes and shares is Opensite Explorer referring at? Is it just how much your page gets liked and shared or about the posts on FB?

[TomRayner]

Hey Sylvana

It's the metrics for the page itself, not the post on FB.

[BridalHotspot]

Thanks Tom,

So how can I use this metric in my advantage?
Google doesn't really count FB shares and likes, does it?

[TomRayner]

I think there's a bit of yes and no in this.

One of the things that got loads of people excited about Facebook shares was the 2012 Searchmetrics ranking factors report - here are the US and UK reports.

You'll see there that the report puts FB shares at the top of its correlation table - as if to say that pages with more shares ranked higher in Google.

The problem is correlation does not equal causation.

What I've found is that social signals can give your page a good short-term boost for a ranking term.  If you're aware of the freshness part of the algorithm that gives a short-term boost to new pages in the search engine results, if those pages also have social signals to back them up, I think you're very likely to see a short-term benefit.

In the long-term, however, there is no substitute for links.  In my own tests that have tried to measure the effect of (real) facebook shares on a page vs links, those with good links sustained the rankings.  To me this makes sense if you think about it - Facebook shares and other social signals are much more easily manipulated.

What is clear though is that social signals are important - getting a lot of them can help your page to rank in the short-term and if you combine that with authoritative and legitimate links, you're definitely on to a winner.

Always aim to accrue Facebook likes and shares but don't see them as a ranking factor (or just a ranking factor).  Someone sharing your page is a pretty strong endorsement for that page's content - if you can increase your shares for your page then you can be sure that your content is on the right track.

Hope this helps.

[BridalHotspot]

Thanks Tim, makes total sense now!

[TomRayner]

Great stuff, glad it helped you out!