Social Sharing Buttons

[RameshNair]

Hi all,

What are the implications if one remove the social sharing buttons on a blog to replace it with new buttons (say, for design purposes)? Will the new buttons retain the earlier shares or will it all be reset to zero? Also, will this have any implications on the blog's SEO in general?

Thanks in advance!

Ramesh

[FedeEinhorn]

If you are using the native sharing buttons, the count shouldn't change. Make sure to set the href or data-url (or whatever option they give you) to specify the URL to track.

It your count's go down to zero, I don't think it would have a significant problem with SEO, as the old shares (tweets links) will still point to the correct URL.

My 2 cents: go with the actual buttons provided by the social sites, instead of "sharethis" or those king of services.

Hope that helps!

[RameshNair]

Thanks Federico!

I personally prefer the native buttons, but at times clients would need the buttons customized to their site's design.

Maybe I should take a test blog account and test this first. My client will have a heartbreak if they see zero shares for all their old posts!

[FedeEinhorn]

Yeah, there a lot of sites using custom buttons, but almost all (except G+) offer APIs you can use to track the count and display it within you personalized button. Anyway, the count they do is to the shared URL, so if you query the API for that exact URL, the count would be the same. I don't think there's nothing you need to worry about (except the server load it will consume needing to ask via the API for the counts, but you can well build a chronjob to update that, still it will be VERY resource consuming if you have MANY posts and many API calls to make).

[RameshNair]

I understand that. Thanks again, Federico!!

[Modi]

Wondering, any reasons of avoiding buttons through  "addthis" and stick to direct share /like buttons of social sites.

[FedeEinhorn]

In my personal opinion, I hate the sharethis or addthis buttons. They look and feel unreal, just like the personalized buttons do. I rather go with the native versions, you can't customize their look, but people are used to them (not to mention sharethis / addthis add their "via [service]" message).