• SEO Scoop , Thursday, July 10, 2008 4 PM

How does the quality of traffic that's generated from social media sites differ from "core" search traffic? James Duthie sought to find out and ran tests on two blogs, one that drew most of its traffic from search engines, and another that scored most of its visitors from social media sites.

Duthie used four metrics to determine traffic quality: returning visitors, average page views, time on site and bounce rate, and SEO traffic clearly trumped SMO traffic in all but the bounce rate category.

"Should social media initiatives be abandoned pronto? Obviously not," Duthie says. "Social media has its place as a genuine traffic generating tactic. But people using social media should be aware of its limitations. If you're looking to sell products or ads, social media may not be the best promotional tactic due to lower engagement levels. However, if you're looking to generate a lot of traffic quickly, social media may be perfect."

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