Does Google+ make a huge difference?
-
I run a website that's been ranked well for good keywords related to our business for some time. It was founded back in 2007 and has been there a while.
Recently a new site has popped up that ranks brilliantly for everything. It's a new site, and the only redeeming factor I can see is that it has an AddThis box showing the Facebook Likes and Google Plus Ones, and they are around 400 Facebook Likes and 80 Google+ (for every page that ranks).
Any other pages on their site which doesn't have any Facebook likes or Google Plus Ones, they don't rank.
Our site doesn't have any likes or pluses. Is this making the difference? I stress that other than this our sites are very similar, other than the fact we've been around over 5 years.
-
Just to follow up on this, today the competitor's site has disappeared from Google.
Again one up for decency! Glad to see things like this being punished.
-
Yes, all I am saying is the numbers are double. I have my own problems with google, so I am the last one to say how it really works, but maybe their ugly links don't fit the spam profile that would get them squashed.
Remember, google is not perfect. They can screw up just as any of us can. There must be hundreds of thousands or even millions of examples where people are looking at results and saying "why is that crap ahead of my site?"
-
I get most of what you say, except that they have put betting in their subheads. When looking at "sportsbet" as a google.com.au search term, I really don't understand why they should be ranked SO far ahead of us.
Regarding the linking domains, again, it's just spam. The links aren't real natural ones, and I don't want to go down that road.
I'm really losing faith/interest, call it what you will, in this game when a site like this is, to me, pretty clearly using dodgy tactics and is having this success
-
You competitor's site does have a lot of likes and a lot of G+ hits.
The numbers of the G+ are very close for each page.
That may mean they just bought 70 G+ hits or maybe they made their visitors hit up all their pages for some benefit.
I've had G+ on my site all this year. We've done almost nothing to get people to like or G+ us - they just do it on their own.
We have just over 1000 likes and 40 G+
So for that site to have 70 G+ on most pages and 100 on the front page, seems very suspicious to me.
It could be they have fooled google. They have also done some great keyword stuffing in the text near the bottom of the front page. Many of our stories only get 5 to 8 G+ hits. I think maybe one page has 12. Google WMT says we don't have enough for them to show any stats. Also, it doesn't appear that we get much - if any - benefit from G+ hits. To begin with, G+ was a liability as all it did was slow down our pages.
They also have bold and put Betting in their subheads.
They also have double the linking domains you have
Looks close to over-optimization, but maybe its not quite enough for the google algorithm to flag it.
So all of that said, I think they are beating you because of their onpage and offpage effort. You have done something similar to them, but they just did it better.
-
I mean the corresponding links to that specific page, which I agree, are spammy.
-
When you say corresponding links, do you mean spam? External links?
-
.02 on quick glance:
It probably has more to do with the fact that they're specifically targeting "sportsbet" on that page and have built corresponding links. Unfortunately, doesn't look like Penguin has got to this one...yet...
Again, this is my opinion after a very brief look.
-
Ok, here are the websites in question.
- My site: http://bit.ly/MvT3gI
- Competitior: http://bit.ly/N5fS0N
Here's an example of a search term that we are nowhere for - "sportsbet", and they are ranked around #4, which is a very good ranking: http://bit.ly/Mjwe4v
The rankings are very similarly good for all his pages which refer to each bookmaker. All have lots of Facebook likes and Google+.
The reason I think he's paid for the social likes is because the sites really aren't the sort to become viral, and get links in a "real" way.
Appreaciate any input into this!
-
Mark,
You can post URLs, however, you might consider using a URL shortener service. If you're willing to share the searches and sites, I'd be happy to offer my .02.
-
Social has/is becoming a increasing factor in rankings and will only become bigger in the future. I would strongly recommend getting into the social aspect. As for the "paying" for likes and such, defiantly stay away from that. Social is not all about trying to get higher in the ranking but about Brand Recognition and Reputation, Communicating with your fan base, customers and clients.
I know businesses that get around 50% of their customers from social networks such as Facebook and twitter. Its defiantly worth getting into and from what I have seen in the past 2 years, it’s no longer an option.
-
Thanks for that. I'm not sure what the rules are regarding putting URLs on here? That's why I haven't put the addresses up yet.
I know the site hasn't got good real social interactions, purely because of the type of site it is. I'm 99% sure that the owner has gotten these likes/pluses through paying people to like/plus the site, or something similar.
I don't want to go along the lines of fighting fire with fire, but if it works as well as it appears to with their site, then it's sure tempting.
-
It’s hard to tell since I can't see and compare both sites that you're talking about but that could very well be a contributing factor. It’s no secret that Google is putting more and more weight on social signals such as likes, followers, and social interactions. It sounds like that site has good social interaction and is getting rewarded in the rankings by Google but I can’t be 100% since I can’t compare the two.
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
-
Is there proof that disavowing backlinks in GSC help to boost rankings in Google?
Hi Guys Let's say you have a website and you got some questionable back links or lower quality ones. Does anyone have proof that after disavowing back links helped in the rankings or had some positive effects? I am concerned that Google will place our website on their radar and instead possibly demote it or smth. Lastly, if disavowing is the way to go what criteria do you use to disavow backlinks? So if you get questionable back links over time, should you disavow ongoing as well? If so how often? Cheers John
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | whiteboardwiz0 -
Homepage not ranking for branded searches after Google penalty removal
Hi all, A site I work on was hit with a manual action penalty some time ago for spammy links built by a former SEO agency. It was a partial match penalty so only affected some pages - most likely the homepage. We carried out a lot of work cleaning up links and disavowed suspicious links which we couldn't get removed. Again, most of these were to the homepage. The disavow file was uploaded to Google last Friday and our penalty was lifted this Tuesday. Since uploading the disavow file, our homepage does not show up at all for branded searches. I've carried out the obvious checks - robots.txt, making sure we're not accidentally noindexing the page or doing anything funky with canonicals etc and it's all good. Have any of you guys had a similar experience? I'm thinking Google simply needs time to catch up due to all the links we've disavowed and sitting tight is the best option but could do with some reassurance! Any past experiences or advice on what I might be missing would be great. Thanks in advance, Brendan.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Brendan-Jackson1 -
HELP: What happened to my rankings? No warning from google how to know if i was penalised?
Hi Guys I have just completely a site re-design, I have 3 top level domains. I have no idea whats causing the drop in ranking. I have changed the title tags and meta tags to improve them and make them better, as the last ones weren't really doing us justice. But I see now it has actually dropped our main keyword. I read somewhere that i had to completed **site search **to check and I don't see our home page showing. I was ranking for the keyword: "online psychics" for over 4months at #6 and now is not showing anywhere in the top 50 keywords. I'm also affraid I can not find our other keyword "online psychic readings" which we were ranked #11 seems to have dropped to #44 I have no idea why this would be the case. Our new home page shows a better user experience and also added more content, unqiue content at that - our last design was content thin so I have no idea why we have dropped so much in rankings. The site is also new about 6months new. I have checked WMT and have not received any warnings of any penalties as such, unless it is still coming? Does anyone have any suggestions here? Cheers
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | edward-may1 -
Do industry partner links violate Google's policies?
We're in the process of The Great _Inquisition_piecing together a reconsideration request. In doing so, we reached out to an agency to filter and flag our backlinks as safe, should be no-followed, or should be removed. The problem is, they flagged several of our earned, industry partner links (like those pointing to us, HireAHelper, from 1-800-Pack-Rat and PODS for example) as either should be no-followed or should be removed. I have a hard time believing Google would penalize such a natural source of earned links, but then again, this is our second attempt at a Reconsideration Request, and I want to cover all my bases. What say you Moz community? No-follow? Remove? Leave alone?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DanielH0 -
Should I Even Bother Trying To Recover This Site After Google Penguin?
Hello all, I would like to get your opinion on whether I should invest time and money to improve a website which was hit by Google Penguin in April 2014. (I know, April 2014 was nearly 2 years ago. However, this site has not been a top priority for us and we have just left until now). The site is www.salmonrecipes.net Basically, we aggregated over 700 salmon recipes from major supermarkets, famous chefs, and others (all with their permission) and made them available on this site. It was a good site at the time but it is showing its age now. For a few years we were occasionally #1 on Google in the US for "salmon recipes", but normally we would be between #2 and #4. We made money from the site almost entirely through Adsense. We never made a huge amount, but it paid our office rent every month, which was handy. We also built up an email database of several thousand followers, but we've not really used this much. (Yet). In the year from 25th April 2011 to 24th April 2012 the site attracted just over 500k visits. After the rankings dropped due to Google Penguin, traffic dropped by 77% in the year from 25th April 2011 to 24th April 2012. Rankings and traffic have not recovered at all, and are only getting worse. I am happy to accept that we deserved our rankings to fall during the Google Penguin re-shuffle. I stupidly commissioned an offshore company to build lots of links which, in hindsight, were basically just spam, and totally without any real value. However they assured me it was safe and I trusted them, despite my own nagging reservations. Anyway, I have full details of all the links they created, and therefore I could remove many of these 'relatively' easily. (Of course, removing hundreds of links would take a lot of time). My questions ... 1. How can I evaluate the probability of this site 'recovering' from Google Penguin. I am willing to invest time/money on link removal and new (ethical) SEO work if there is a reasonable chance of regaining a position in the top 5 on Google (US) for "salmon recipes" and various long-tail terms. But I am keen to avoid spending time/money on this if it is unlikely we will recover. How can I figure out my chances? 2. Generally, I accept that this model of site is in decline. Relying on Google to drive traffic to a site, and on Google to produce revenue via its Adsense scheme, is risky and not entirely sensible. Also, Google seems to provide more and more 'answers' itself, rather than sending people to e.g. a website listing recipes. Given this, is it worth investing any money in this at all? 3. Can you recommend anyone who specialises in this kind of recovery work. (As I said, I have a comprehensive list of all the links that were built, etc). OK, that is all for now. I am really looking forward to whatever opinions you may have about this. I'll provide more info if required. Huge thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smaavie
David0 -
Have just submitted Disavow file to Google: Shall I wait until after they have removed bad links to start new content lead SEO campaign?
Hi guys, I am currently conducting some SEO work for a client. Their previous SEO company had built a lot of low quality/spam links to their site and as a result their rankings and traffic have dropped dramatically. I have analysed their current link profile, and have submitted the spammiest domains to Google via the Disavow tool. The question I had was.. Do I wait until Google removes the spam links that I have submitted, and then start the new content based SEO campaign. Or would it be okay to start the content based SEO campaign now, even though the current spam links havent been removed yet.. Look forward to your replies on this...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | sanj50500 -
Has google done well with these search results?
I am struggling to grasp the new logic behind google, my understanding was that they wanted to return more related searches so that the search matched the results giving people exactly what they are looking for from trusted suppliers. However I work in the vacation rental niche and I have found that the individual long tail searches have started to become less valuable as they are no longer giving the exact property. Here is a screenshot of the top 10 results for the key phrase "10 bedroom villas in quinta do lago" Position 1 & 2 are good results and would be expected however the next 7 positions are completely not related to the search, yes it is quinta do lago. But I am looking specifically for a 10 bedroom villa, none of these pages offer 10 bedroom villas. I actually found my listing outside the top 20 and mine is a 10 bedroom villa in quinta do lago. Does anyone have anything that can enlighten me on this? Thanks Andy 0bqdRJi
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | iprosoftware0 -
Tools to check Google Local SEO with suggestions.
Is there any tool for to check website position on Google maps ?? and also what is the way to check that a website is listed on which local directories and on which not listed and to get suggestions for improvements ?? so need Tools to check Google Local SEO with suggestions.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mnkpso0