I was reading Google’s guide to SEO (pdf) , and it’s actually pretty good from a website or business owner perspective. However here’s a quote I found interesting, this is something they recommend NOT to do on social media websites:
involving your site in schemes where your content is artificially promoted to the
top of these services.
For a long time Google endorsed viral link building on sites like Digg with no reservations. They figured the “wisdom of crowds” would naturally prevent undesirable content from becoming popular and getting links. Of course this is because the folks at Google tend to lead sheltered lives, and don’t believe people would ever sell votes, links or social media influence for cold hard cash … those of us living in the real world know otherwise. After living in denial though they eventually come around, and then start asking everyone to narc on other people, despite it being a really bad karma move.
How long before we see a “How to report social media spam” section of the google guidelines, and link to a form in webmaster central?
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I get this message when i try to get to the pdf link you give:
You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘)’ at line 5 on line: 2659
On to the subject now…They seem to be trying to create fear to all those guys that are buying traffic from social media…I bet they are gonna say it officially on their blog soon enough and people will start whining again about Google’s tactics but in the end they will accept it like it is always done…
Damn that’s depressing
link fixed thanks
I would think it would only be a problem if you are involved in a “scheme”. But of course, this will be defined by an algorithm which will catch some innocents.
This verbage has been around forever. It means nothing. Google has no way of determining the value of a social/viral link other than to look at classic indicators that might point to the link being “Artifical”. Even if Google determines a viral attempt or campaign to be artificial, it can and will do absolutely nothing about it. If it did, the entire social world would be exposed to people using artificial link building means to get their competitor sites penalized.
To determine valid social link fraud, it would be an algorithm the likes of which would give Einstein a migraine. Maybe if Google applied its heavy lifting to solving more pressing world problems, we might all enjoy a nicer world!
i GOT TO aGREE WITH ToDD
+1
How much $ are you offering for Sphinn votes on this story?
I think spam is growing in Social Media every day. But Google give us a sign that those Social Media sites get less importance on their rankings. You can prove it creating a “spammy promotion” that does not include any interaction with the networks.
Maybe they (Google) will not create a button to report this king of spam, but the social sites will do it, and will ban users and sites that participate into this scheme.
Barry, LOL 3 times::))
I had same question
I imagine there will always be a new social media site that will become popular enough, everyone gets their link juice then move on. It’s a shame that some people ruin an otherwise viable option for marketing.
very helpful post…thanks a lot…um prety new in this seo business…still have to learn a lot…
Social Media is a part of Blogs & Social Bookmarking. This is crazy to think that Google will penalize for Social Media Spam thats like saying Google will penalize for Blog Comments or better yet for having forum signatures. Social Bookmarking is a huge part of Social Media but keep in mind Blogs and Social Media Forums are even bigger my friend.
Social Media is a part of Social Marketing. Death row is far from where it is at. How can we devalue these links? As equivalent to “WORD-OF-MOUTH” in the real world are these social media links. Just because people make profiles and spam them still isn’t that bad. It’s not inflating more garbage in our eyes then mainstream media does.
I thinjk some of you missed the point. The point is google realizes that social media votes are vulnerable, via sock puppets, nepotism, blind voting, botnets, or outright cash payments. if you can create a post and make it “go popular” thru artificial means you will get the links google wants you to get, and it’s going to be very hard for them to distinguish the good from the bad.
I agree with you Michael that google knows/sees they are vulnerable but I believe it is still growing – not nearing anywhere that will be outright removed – nor disvalued. It’s still a small percentage of people that utilize those scammy methods EFFECTIVELY – such as botnets/cash payments. Botnets are no where near as prevelant as they were in the late 90s.
Good God I’m so tired of Google’s “Parenting Skills” or lack thereof.
I personally don’t take much of what Google has to say as pure gold. Rarely if ever do they ever give the whole story about anything and I believe that this is nothing more than another attempt to get people all freaked out.
And because its so incredibly detailed, as is all of their documentation, we fully understand what they mean.
As you stated, there is no way of actually knowing who is using social networks for self-promotion services and who is not. I wouldn’t put it past them to offer up some kind of option to “tell on” someone else. However, I think that eventually all of these options to narc on other people will eventually catch up with them.
“I think some of you missed the point. The point is google realizes that social media votes are vulnerable, via sock puppets, nepotism, blind voting, botnets, or outright cash payments.”
It’s the cash payment thing google doesn’t like. They don’t want you paying someone to get a story to the front page of as social media site (which happens non-stop). They want you giving money to adwords. Their hope is that someone dumb enough to believe this PDF will read it and re-consider giving money to a firm or person who’s a power user at Digg etc. out of fear that being on the front page of Digg won’t help you from an SEO standpoint. If anyone’s stupid enough to believe this PDF, they don’t deserve to be on the front page of a social media site.
Perhaps it’s getting to the stage where Google will have to adopt an ‘if in doubt, don’t count it’ approach to all links.
d
I don’t think it’s just cash payments. Surely Google realizes how much vote trading is going on. There’s a simple enough solution: just pay no attention whatsover to Digg, Sphinn et al. Only consider organic links from real websites. Of course there will still be fake link trading, but it’s at least possible to imagine algorithms that could notice the worst of that at least.
Personally, I opted out of all social media except Tweeter last year. I don’t ask for Diggs etc. – in fact I actively discourage them – and I pay zero attention to what those sites say is popular. I just go through my RSS feeds and find the interesting stuff from sites I know and trust.
I’ll be perfectly happy if Google just flat out drops all that stuff.
good post,Google change many things in its latest algorithm.
There are too many Digg clones just like Dmoz clones and link directories. So Google is taking action.
i followed all possible rules (added URL, submitted sitemap, did some linking, constructed alt tags for images) but still my site isnt indexed by google…any other possibilities??
sure you arent blocking anything with robots or meta tags? do you have at least a handful of links to kickstart the process?
i deleted the robots.txt…though it wasnt blocking bots… it was a * and / in the robots.txt…. so it was set to allow all bots…i have linked my site in atleast 15 directories and blogs…i think um getting a bit impatient…only a week have passed since i opened my site…how long does it take to get indexed?
I have been reporting websites that are spammy in nature and doesn’t hold any value in the internet. Also other websites that are spamming my inbox.
Even if Google wanted to, they can’t control everything that happens in the web. And people will always find ways to game the system.
Micheal, your point about Google starting to understand that they are vulnerable is spot on. As usual the “Google is all Knowing” crowd believe Google wouldn’t do this or could do it without harming the innocents also spot on. Paid links were an obvious vulnerability that went mainly unchecked for years, partially because it’s hard to ascertain the buyers intent. Will Google devalue Social Links, sure anything that gets the hype it has will get devalued it’s been like that for as long as I have been doing this. IMO, if you are manufacturing Social links yourself then… the effectiveness has a limited shelf like all link schemes they are short term solutions to long term problems. Social links from unbiased sources to legitimate content will work. For instance if the profile has all it’s links to a single site then… you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or Google engineer to figure it out!
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