Commentary

Do Brands Buy SEO Search Rankings?

by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, August 9, 2011

Social signals from Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter used in combination with inbound links to optimize Web sites and pages may have more influence on SEO rankings than first believed.

Google and Bing tell us traffic from social media signals influences SEO rankings and increases the chance of attracting natural links from multiple sources. So how many "+1," "like," share," and Sponsored Tweets are paid for by advertisers indirectly through social media sponsorships?

More than half of marketers that participated in a survey conducted in June and released Tuesday by IZEA admit to compensating social media gurus with cash, tips, gift cards, free stuff, coupons or discounts to mention their products in a social stream. IZEA provides a marketplace that turns any blogger into a publisher through social media streams.

It turns out that liking, sharing, or +1-ing a post influences SEO rankings on Google, Bing or Yahoo. So as visitors reach and click the button to give the post a thumbs-up, should the sponsored post have some sort of restriction based on a search algorithm that prohibits it from carrying weight in organic query rankings?

SEO Training Dojo Founder David Harry said "Google gets pretty serious about 'sponsored' posts," which means those who are compensated for talking about products in social media posts and streams need to use the rel="nofollow" tag when linking to products from paid posts. It doesn't happen often enough, but technically it is a breach of the Terms of Service and best practices -- not only on google.com, but bing.com and yahoo.com, too. That not only means paid compensation, but also product reviews.

Yep, when it comes to Google, Bing and Yahoo, not following the rules could mean being removed from search queries.

More than 81% of marketers have done or would do sponsored blog posts, according to the IZEA study, which also puts a price on social media sponsorships. Feedback from some of the 3,849 total respondents estimates the worth of one sponsored blog post at $114.71; tweets, $63.64; Facebook updates, $55.16; videos, $112.46; photos, $54.58; check-ins, $40.15; Twitter followers, $46.53; and Facebook "like," $45.63.

Since social media signals now influence search engine rankings, how will the engines authenticate signals? "Monitoring the impact of sponsored social media will put a burden on search engines," said IZEA CEO Ted Murphy. "Any time you put a value on a 'like' or '+' that improves SEO rankings, there are advertisers who will want to buy it."

This new form of link building that influences search engine rankings may need a few more rules. Murphy agrees it's not the primary reason brands want to tap social media sponsoring, but the practice will rock SEO optimization and influence positions in search engine queries more than expected.

link building, search, seo, social media, social networks

2 comments about "Do Brands Buy SEO Search Rankings?".

Check to receive email when comments are posted.

Chris Nielsen from Domain Incubation, August 11, 2011 at 10:45 a.m.
"... need to use the rel="nofollow" tag when linking to products from paid posts. It doesn't happen often enough, but technically it is a breach of the Terms of Service and best practices -- not only on google.com, but bing.com and yahoo.com, too."
Is this a TOS violation for my blog, or for what a search engines dictates for my blog? Well, it's not the former and the latter is joke!
Search engines cannot have it both ways: They want to use links to assign value, but they way to set what the values imparted by a site is. They are trying to control the uncontrolable because they want to use a system that is flawed and corrupt and has been since people caught on that they were using linking among other things to determine ranking.
SEO used to be mostly just about finding out what people are searching for that relates to what you offer, and makeing sure they can find you. Now, that core practice is clouded with tags, tweets, likes, and links.
The basic idea behind links was fine as it was with "+1" except for one thing: The ability of people to abuse the system.
We've started using "+1" to see if it has any effect. We use many accounts to PluSpam sites we manage. I suspect it is a waste of time, as many others are doing much more than we are ( see http://www.google.com/search?q=Plus Spam ), but the effort is small to see if it helps anything.
Look, if you build a bank, but only have a screen door in the alley, what do you think is going to happen at some point? Creating systems that are open to abuse, if not clearly invite it, are flawed from the start and really should not make sense to anyone.
Reply

Israel Seo from AIMS-Advanced Internet Marketing Strategies, August 18, 2011 at 4:15 a.m.

Hi Laurie,
Thank you for an outstanding post. I wish I was a fly on the wall at Google and Bing to overhear the latest algorithm updates. One day we are getting used to Google Plus and the next day Google ends its use of tweets. We all must be on our toes.
Yours,
Seo Israel