Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Digital Marketing
    3. Social Media
    4. Does a link in facebook count as a backlink?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does a link in facebook count as a backlink?

    Social Media
    7
    8
    37081
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • kevinbp
      kevinbp last edited by

      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?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
      • MasteryQuest
        MasteryQuest last edited by

        Yeah i read the same.
        Backlinks from social platforms doesn't per see do much favor.
        Here is a some links too about link building for newbees too: [https://support.shorturl.gg/business-marketing-and-seo-forums/discussions/seo-talks/link-building-seo/](link url) and the one where they talk about that Google might consider link building as spam is very interesting I'd think in my opinion.

        In theory it might hurt you as they could consider non organic link building as a break of Google's TOS. Not sure how true it is but still its a bit interesting as it seems that they prefer that links are built only the organcic way and not through SEO practices. 🤔

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • randfish
          randfish @Dan-Louis last edited by

          A) Generally yes, but hard to say for certain. There are correlations suggesting that maybe some of them do pass influence in some way.

          B) Probably, but again, likely based on engagement, i.e. if a social link gets very little engagement, it probably won't do much to influence search rankings, but if it gets a lot, it often seems to have at least some positive impact.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • Dan-Louis
            Dan-Louis last edited by

            am I correct to assume that:

            • a) Social, "nofollow"-links have no tangible value in terms of directly affecting rankings
            • b) All social links indirectly affects rankings (time on page, increase in traffic, more direct traffic, and so forth ...)
            randfish 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • randfish
              randfish @kushvision last edited by

              It depends on the definition and intent of the word. In this case, I believe KevinBP wants to know whether those links will impact rankings in the same way that normal, followed links from other websites will/do. I believe we'd all agree that social media links with nofollow attributes do not contribute in those ways.

              I'd also say, more broadly, that while many types of links will show up in Google's Webmaster Tools, this criteria alone does not indicate rank-boosting ability from those links or that Google is even counting them.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
              • kushvision
                kushvision last edited by

                To shock all of you YES facebook links count as a backlink.... If you have not checked your webmaster tools lately you will notice that comment links on facebook post now show up in your back-links profile. However this may not be the best quality links they are similar to forum comment posting a very low level/quality of link building.

                If they are showing up in your webmaster tools then they are do follow links and are considered back-links.

                I would love to hear what everyone think of this logic?

                randfish 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • Andy-Halliday
                  Andy-Halliday last edited by

                  Nope, they don't.

                  Good article here explaining it in more detail: http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2325343/matt-cutts-facebook-twitter-social-signals-not-part-of-google-search-ranking-algorithms but basically any link from Facebook or twitter does not help your rankings.

                  Would be way to easy to manipulate to get rankings.

                  If your new to link building, then this is a great beginners guide to it: http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/growing-popularity-and-links

                  Thanks

                  Andy

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 6
                  • RangeMarketing
                    RangeMarketing last edited by

                    Links via social media are traditionally "no follow". Facebook and Twitter follow this convention.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                    • 1 / 1
                    • First post
                      Last post

                    Got a burning SEO question?

                    Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                    Start my free trial


                    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.

                    • See all categories

                    Related Questions

                    • Kyle_M

                      Best way to link from press releases

                      I'm wondering what people recommend for linking from press releases; specifically, what kind of tracking parameters people add to their links, if any. My first thought is to add UTM tracking parameters for Google Analytics, but I have a few concerns: bloggers that copy our link from the release include the tracking parameters in the links from their site, which would only identify the traffic as coming from the release and not the specific sites UTM parameters in the link may make it look less natural to Google Also, I've considered using shortened URL's without parameters in the release that get 301 redirected to the relevant pages, which I thought might have a few benefits: the links look more natural (no tracking parameters) UTM parameters could be added as part of the redirect after the fact if the release attracted links from spammy sources for some reason I could kill the redirect, which I'm hoping would effectively kill the link My company doesn't rely on press releases for link building, which we understand to have been ineffective for a long time, but we do send them out occasionally and want the most effective links for tracking and SEO. I'd love to hear if anyone has thoughts on these assumptions, or if anyone has different linking strategies that they have found strike the right balance of SEO and tracking considerations. Thanks!

                      Social Media | | Kyle_M
                      2
                    • Tz_Seo

                      Pinterest Link Value

                      Hello, First of all I know that all the links which come from Pinterest are no follow. However about 4 years ago we made a campaign to pinterest for one of the websites we are managing. Although the thing was going well we had to stop it for various reasons. Right now, 4 years later, this thing has grown big without any move for us! All these years our pins, which were great in many aspects, were continuously reppined. This has lead to the point where the Google Search Console is reporting that about 500.000 links are linking to our website from Pinterest. We know how this has helped us or not concerning the actual refferring traffic from Pinterest but our main question, and this where we want the Moz's community help, is how is this helping from a SEO aspect. Thank you!

                      Social Media | | Tz_Seo
                      1
                    • amichaels

                      Facebook.com / referral - What is it?

                      Hi Moz community! Coming to you today to ask a two fold question about a mysterious source/medium combination and also social medium data in general. First question relates to the attached image named 'Facebook Referral.' We've made sure to apply correct tags to all of our campaigns, both organic and paid, and are having a difficult time figuring out where this source/medium comes from which is a bit troubling as it actually has pulled in some revenue over the past couple of months The second question is around general Facebook data. Our Facebook business manager is vastly over reporting clicks to landing pages. For instance, we saw about 1,700 clicks to site as reported by Facebook business manager, whereas Google Analytics only registered about 950. I know data between the two channels rarely lines up perfectly, but this seems like a rather wide variance. Can someone help me to understand this, and let me know if there is anyway to reduce the occurrence of one or both of the issues we're facing. Thanks! referral.PNG

                      Social Media | | amichaels
                      0
                    • Dan-Lawrence

                      Facebook Page - About/Description/General About/Mission - Questions

                      Hi, Im just setting up a FB fan page for a client How terrible is it to use clients websites home page descriptive copy as the Facebook page long description ? Language is in Turkish which i don't speak so i'm not able to edit a new version of it just for FB and no budget to hire Turkish speaker to come up with something. So was going to copy & paste but that would be duplicate with HP obviously. How important is it to fill in 'Mission Statement' & 'General About' ? Especially if long description likely to already include that info ? I think long descrip is important for FB pages on seo etc etc but a good one eliminates importance of 'Mission' & 'General About', or is it still advisable to fill these in or are they just extra boxes for flexibility ? I take it when it comes to securing a vanity url (once we hit 25+ fans) for a foreign language version FB page it should ideally be brand name (which includes a keyword) in the local/target language ? The page name is already the brand name in English but since contains keyword is it best to rename into local target language similarly to the url for consistency and local targeting or better to keep one in Turkish and one in English ? Many Thanks Dan

                      Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence
                      0
                    • Muhammad_Jabali

                      Facebook adds a trailing slash to urls?

                      Hey Guys, we are facing a problem in our www.batuta.com with Facebook shares. Seems like because we choose to set our preferred canonical version urls to end with a trailing slash ( / ), like this one e.g.: www.batuta.com/الوجهات/إسبانيا/ Facebook adds automatically another ( / ) when trying to read the url on first share before its ever indexed in FB. Which makes Facebook think its a bad request! cause then the URL has two // at the end of it. hope this was clear. anyway, so first question: did anybody face this issue before? any solutions? Second, and might be more important: I might be forced to face the option of changing the canonical tags to be a url without a ( / ) if I will have to do this I will enforce a redirect on every url request with an ending trailing slash ( / ) to be redirected to the new canonical version without. will this be enough? how big am I supposed to suffer here? am I facing a long time with double indexed urls? wonder if anybody faced this problem before! Best Regards

                      Social Media | | Muhammad_Jabali
                      0
                    • jstallings

                      We got 10,000 facebook likes overnight from people in another country. WHY? How do I get rid of them?

                      Our facebook page http://www.facebook.com/MobileAttic received more than 10,000 likes over night.  We only had about 250 likes prior to this. I know this hurts our engagement numbers as well as limits real customers / community from seeing our posts. Is there any way to get our fans down to a real "non-spammed" number?

                      Social Media | | jstallings
                      0
                    • unitedairlines

                      Are links between a subdomain and a root domain internal or external?

                      We have a microsite on a subdomain that is kind of a community site that has articles posted to it several times per week. The articles are often relevant to topics covered on the root domain, so links are often included. My question is, are links between the subdomain and root domain considered internal or external? Also, how much of a difference does the location of the links make? For example, if we have a related links menu with links to the root domain is that good enough, or is it that much better to have the links embedded in the article text (toward the beginning of the article)?

                      Social Media | | unitedairlines
                      0
                    • Dan-Lawrence

                      Changing Facebook Username

                      HI Does anyone know of any negative consequences of changing Facebook username ? For example i take it all your fans are transferred/you dont lose them 🙂 ? Its just a url change (so links on website etc need to be updated) but thats the only thing that changes ? Many Thanks Dan

                      Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence
                      0

                    Get started with Moz Pro!

                    Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                    Start my free trial
                    Products
                    • Moz Pro
                    • Moz Local
                    • Moz API
                    • Moz Data
                    • STAT
                    • Product Updates
                    Moz Solutions
                    • SMB Solutions
                    • Agency Solutions
                    • Enterprise Solutions
                    Free SEO Tools
                    • Domain Authority Checker
                    • Link Explorer
                    • Keyword Explorer
                    • Competitive Research
                    • Brand Authority Checker
                    • Local Citation Checker
                    • MozBar Extension
                    • MozCast
                    Resources
                    • Blog
                    • SEO Learning Center
                    • Help Hub
                    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                    • How-to Guides
                    • Moz Academy
                    • API Docs
                    About Moz
                    • About
                    • Team
                    • Careers
                    • Contact
                    Why Moz
                    • Case Studies
                    • Testimonials
                    Get Involved
                    • Become an Affiliate
                    • MozCon
                    • Webinars
                    • Practical Marketer Series
                    • MozPod
                    Connect with us

                    Contact the Help team

                    Join our newsletter
                    Moz logo
                    © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                    • Accessibility
                    • Terms of Use
                    • Privacy

                    Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.