Is Twitter Stealing Our Link Juice?
-
Something recently clicked in my mind when looking at the way our web developers were linking to our twitter accounts:.
They were linking like this: A) https://twitter.com/#!/aczarto
Instead of like this: B) https://twitter.com/aczarto
(Due to a copy/paste from the address bar).Technically (A) is a link to the homepage of twitter and NOT to the individual twitter account as in **(B) **(The hash tag isn't technically part of the url, and traditionally Google has ignored everything after the hashtag)
For me, this raises a few thoughts/comments:
- Make sure your web team is linking in (B) format and not just copy pasting the url when they visit your company's twitter page.
- I don't think twitter is doing this on purpose - but if they are - it is EVIL GENIUS! They are stealing lots of links heading into a user's account page and instead sending that link juice to their home page.
- Does Google-bot follow hash tags? ie: When Google hits the link (A), does it crawl twitter.com/ or does it crawl twitter.com/#!/aczarto?
- Is this a tactic that can be leveraged by others to try and direct links to other pages? ie: MyWebStore.com/money-page/#show-link-bait that generates shares that actually produce links to the site's money page instead of the intended link-bait.
- Could this be possibly considered cloaking?
Looking forward to people's thoughts...
-
I don't think so. Twitter helps a lot to get social signals for pages. I did this for my page of horse that hosted on WordPress.
-
Very cool. I've added a screen shot just in case the SERPs change at a later date.
-
lol....no it was not intentional....:)
without.....but when you click on them both are listed with the #!.
Yesterday for some reason my twitter account rankings went through the roof and I am ranked for many keywords for my twitter account now. I am not sure what happened but am very happy about it.
-
Could you provide a link to the SERP or a screenshot? I only see the non-hashtag version:
Also, the links you provided above link to the @OrthoJobs twitter account -- Is that intentional?
-
both of mine are listed on twitter. for example. @ horsebuggy shows up as
-
Horse Buggy
<cite>twitter.com/horsebuggy</cite>Sign up for Twitter to follow Horse Buggy (@_HorseBuggy_). Horse Buggy is the Leading provider of**...**
-
<cite>https://twitter.com/#!/HorseBuggy</cite>Sign up for Twitter to followk HorseBuggy.net (@_HorseBuggy_). Leading provider of Horse Buggies.....
-
-
Figured out the answers from this SERP:
Notice how the SEER Interactive twitter account is listed like this: https://twitter.com/#!/seerinteractive (likely because that's how they link to it from their homepage: http://www.seerinteractive.com/)
And not like this: https://twitter.com/seerinteractiveSo the answers to the questions above are:
- It doesn't matter which format you use as Google understands that this is a special case URL, and will include the hashtag in the spidered URL. But, you may still have canonical link issues and splitting of link juice.
- Link juice is going to your twitter account page regardless of how you link. Twitter is not stealing link juice to it's homepage.
- Google has a special case for Twitter - With twitter URLS, Google will consider the hashtag to be part of the URL.
- This tactic could be leveraged by others, but it would be considered cloaking. It is not cloaking in Twitter's case, as Google recognizes the URL as a unique url.
Hope someone found this interesting. (I did!)
Alex
-
I put my twitter url on a directory and it was not working...so they changed it.
They sent me the following message.
The following changes have been made:
** Twitter Id changing from http://twitter.com/widget to http://twitter.com/#!/widget
Should I have them change it to something else?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Adding links to FB, Googleplus, pininterest, Twitter
HI everyday we are posting new product detail url to FB, Googleplus, pininterest, Twitter. 1. Will this have any value at all in SEO? and also we get question related to the products, we are thinking to post on FB/Google plus with urls and answer.. 2. wht do you think? Pls suggest.. thanks We have blogs in http://domainname.blogspot.in/ and domainname.wordpress.com
Social Media | | Rahim119
we are also pasting the links and some write is happening there as well..0 -
LinkedIn switching links in messages to httpS?
One of my clients has been using the "Send a message" function in LinkedIn to reach out to folks with whom he's connected, and it seems that recently (though it could have always been this way), LinkedIn is changing the URL from http:// to https:// when he provides a link to his website. His site isn't secure, since it's not ecommerce and doesn't collect PII, and though I know that Google "likes" sites that are https, it doesn't seem like it's worth the investment. I did test this, and found the same "switcheroo" happening to me. Anyone know if this is a new LinkedIn thing, and if there's a workaround? Thanks for reading!
Social Media | | measurableROI1 -
Best Twitter for SEO Accounts
Every few months I clean out my Twitter account to cut the noise and refocus on SEO. Please help me by leaving feedback for your top five SEO related Twitter accounts to follow!
Social Media | | RLG0 -
Does a link in facebook count as a backlink?
Q: Does a link in a facebook post count as a backlink? Q: is it a 'do follow' or 'no follow' link? Q: twitter uses short links, so when someone links to me, do i get the points/juice from the backlink?
Social Media | | kevinbp3 -
Twitter Cards via Wordpress/Yoast
Hi I had set up a Twitter card via Yoast interface in clients Wordpress site but now want to change the summary copy. I have also had a look at Tiwtter dev zone and cant see any way of editing via that Does anyone know how to do this (edit the twitter card) since seems that once its set up via Yoast you cant edit it ? Cheers Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Twitter interactions
We would love for some feedback as we're facing an internal dilemma on how to utilize twitter for our business. We are launcing a new travel site that will connect travellers based on their activities and also serve as a booking platform. One part of our marketing team suggests we make two seperate twitter accounts; one 'formal' that follows a structured guideline in posting relevant material and one for the Social Media manager to reply to people as site official. The other part suggests we reply and interact using the 'formal' account; no second twitter account needed for interacting. What would you suggest?
Social Media | | Ilias__G0 -
Social Icons Link to Inner Pages
We have the social icons (facebook, twitter, youtube etc) in the footer of our homepage linked to inner pages instead of our actual social accounts. So, if you click on the facebook icon you go to one of our inner pages talking about our facebook profile and why to like us on facebook. Then on this inner page you can get to our facebook profile. We do this so we can pass on PR juice from our homepage to our inner page, and not lose it right off our front page. Is this a good idea? Or does it just confuse users? Most people think when they click on a facebook icon they will go to an actual facebook profile. Here is my homepage, http://www.buyautoparts.com/ click on the icons on the footer and let me know your thoughts.
Social Media | | joebuilder0 -
How do search engines understand what social pages are official pages of my brand? If my Facebook page name is not my brand name (even though there are links from website to page and vice-versa) will that confuse search engines?
My question is about social shares, and how search engines understand what profiles are linked to what businesses?
Social Media | | PlanetDISH0