Social Media Links

[RobSchofield]

I cannot seem to find the answer through my research. Can somebody tell me if social media links to a website are taking into consideration by Google? For example, if l have a video on my website and post the link on my facebook page, when other people share it do more and more links get created? Are these picked up on open site explorer?

[Cyrus-Shepard]

You've stumbled on a very big question is SEO. Unfortunately there's no right answers, just lots of nuances.

In the traditional sense, most social links and mentions are not handled the same way by search engines as traditional links. We do know that Google takes social data into account, and there is a high correlation between content that is highly shared and content that ranks well, but we don't know exactly how search engines use this data.

Think of it this way: when you post your video on Facebook and people share it, that means more people are talking about it and you have a change at more attention, links and mentions. These are all things search engines are looking for, and there's a good chance you'll rank higher. But it may be more of an indirect effect than a direct one.

The one exception may be Google+, which is structured different than other social platforms. Post on Google+ pass both PageRank and anchor text, and post shared there actually "count" as a link, as far as I know.

So the answer to your question is yes and maybe. Social links may be taken into consideration by the search engines, but typically not the same way as traditional links.

Facebook doesn't share all their data with Google, for the most part discourages robots, and you won't typically find posts in Open Site Explorer. That doesn't mean the links don't count, but in the traditional sense they don't carry the same value.