What now? Do we believe Moz or Matt Cutts?

[FedeEinhorn]

Following Today's post on Moz Blog: Amazing Correlation Between Google +1s and Higher Search Rankings, Search Engine Land released a Matt Cutts statement that clearly says that Google +1s does not affect rankings at all: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-once-again-1s-have-no-direct-impact-on-rankings-170200

Now, who should we believe? Do we need to focus on G+ or it would be better to spent our time using other link building/earning techniques?

[MikeRoberts]

Maybe everyone is right... Correlation does not equal causation.

Moz sees that there is a correlation between higher ranked sites and +1s but that does not mean +1s cause higher rankings. It could be that higher ranked sites are more likely to get +1'd.

[Goulart]

I would agree with Mike.

Search Engine Land and Moz are looking at it from an outside view and crunch a ton of numbers to figure out what sways SEO. Matt Cutts wants to get rid of spammers, if he clearly comes out and states it does make a difference and effects your ranking. I can see a ton of spammers flooding a Google+, which would be great for the company from a birds eye view.

I wouldn't be overly concerned about the specifics in SEO ranking. Focus more on developing a great website with Google Webmaster guidelines in mind (clean code is super important!), make sure your website looks great to consumers (lowers bounce rate and increases brand awareness) and have your website load within 2 seconds. Don't forget to add  great and valuable content to your site. It will naturally start to get ranked (reach out to journalists to get mentions + link backs!).

[FedeEinhorn]

This reminds me so much to "The Matrix"...

[johnny122]

We should not "believe" anything, we should always test :).

[CleverPhD]

Re-read the Moz blog.  It talks about why it is not a direct impact on rankings but an indirect one.  Matt Cutts is an engineer and thinks in black and white, there is nothing "direct" but that does not mean there is not an indirect effect.  The indirect effect is what the blog post is talking about.  Read the "update" part at the bottom.

[ReferralCandy]

At the end of the day, one thing we know for sure is that Google+ will play an increasingly important role in search rankings. Google's foray into Authorship and how it optimises G+ for SEO are clear signs that Google wants to increase the correlation between G+ and its search engine.

Focusing on getting +1s is like trying to get a lot of Facebook likes, which we know is a factor that can be easily "gamed" by buying likes. Google will surely know better than that to give a disproportionately high weightage on the number of +1s.

The same old adage should still apply: Focus on generating interesting quality content. But don't forget about sharing it and trying to generate a discussion on G+, which will help in your SEO.

[BlueprintMarketing]

I personally trust Moz

while Google will tell you there's no direct relation between plus ones and higher rankings I think they are just trying to tell you not to expect a simple +1 to make you go up in the serps however if you have enough of them there's no way in my opinion Google could not care or not take that into account.

There may be an an indirect method in which plus ones are getting sites that receive many of them higher rankings.

I hope that sheds someone on my opinion.

All the best,

Thomas

[Kingof5]

This comment on the SEL article sums it up best - http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-once-again-1s-have-no-direct-impact-on-rankings-170200#comment-1010348314

[Cyrus-Shepard]

So you basically have 2 different arguments here, both of which are probably true.

1. Raw +1s don't directly effect search rankings  (What Matt Cutts said)

2. Sharing on Google+ likely has secondary benefits that help search engine visibility. (What I said in my Moz article, although not as clearly as I would have liked)

Matt Cutts wasn't refuting the article directly (as far as I could tell) but debunking the conclusion that many people were drawing from it.

Regardless, we know links are important, and good content is important, and the type of content that earns good links is also often the type of content that earns +1s. Hopefully, you can find a way to pursue it all at once.