Does the Facebook Share button still exist?

[heatherrobinson]

Hi everyone,

I'm reading everywhere about the Facebook 'Share' being more powerful than the Facebook 'Like'.

Just yesterday, there's a post on the SEOmoz blog about Facebook Shares http://www.seomoz.org/blog/plus-one-adoption-rates-and-social-sharing-statistics

But I thought the Share button was replaced by the Like button? http://mashable.com/2011/02/27/facebook-like-button-takes-over-share-button-functionality/

All references to the Share button now point you to Facebook's Like button developer page.

So if we want more SEO value, where can we get the Share button from? Or do we have to make do with the Like button from now on?

[USHoleInOne]

You could also use the term "recommend" when you create a button similar to this.

I believe that it is just a term, but if you like a link and it posted to your wall, then that is considered a "share". It is not the same as liking someone's status on FB, the link it actually getting shared to your fans or friends.

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like/

[heatherrobinson]

There's quite a bit of difference in terns of how they appear on the user's wall. See article http://daggle.com/facebook-button-facebook-share-keeping-1792

And there's a clear distinction between the buttons. I appreciate the article is old, but the latest ranking factors from SEOmoz show that shares have a higher correlation to search engine rankings than likes. Why would the two be separate, if they mean the same thing?

[john4math]

Like and share are different.  Sharing will just give you the option to post something on your wall, but you won't "like" it.  Here's an article which should give you some info about implementing share buttons.  From what I've read, it looks like Facebook will be phasing out shares for likes at some point, so who knows how long share will be around.  Share is a little outdated, since when you like something, you also have the opportunity to share it on your wall.  If you're going to share something on your wall, don't you like it?

Huffington Post allows you to do both on their articles. For example, see here.

In response to your reply on Nicholas' answer, I think there is some control by site on how the additional text you can write on your wall when you "like" something.  Maybe there is some psychology involved, where if you click "share", you're more prone to adding a comment about what you're sharing, and with "like", you're less prone to adding text when you post it to your wall.

[davebrown1975]

You can still utilise the old way of sharing on facebook from your content with a simple URL..

You could either use an image link, or text link but the main guts is the URL..

http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=<url to="" share="">&t=The%20Title%20To%Share

That's it in a nutshell. Replace the 'u' parameter with the URL to share, and the 't' parameter with an escaped title. I've added %20 to show spaces in the example. </url>

[USHoleInOne]

By using the open graph protocol you can control how the like/share/recommend appears on a Facebook Wall.

http://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/