Google Confirm Tweet Status Can Effect Natural Ranking Position

 

Way back at the end of 2009, we heard through the grapevine that there were to be some major changes to the Google Algorithm, and how it would decide which websites would be listed on the first page.

We had heard there would be 6 major changes:

  • Site Speed
  • Bounce Rate
  • Time Spent On Site
  • Duplicate Content
  • Poor Links
  • Social Media

We saw massive changes to some of the ranking positions websites with the May Day update, and there have been other updates that have had the online (SEO) community chatting about since then.

An interview with Dan Sullivan from Google confirmed that the status of your tweets can also feed back to the ranking of your website. What this means is that when you tweet, you are hoping for this to get retweeted by people who have found it interesting. And then some of their followers do the same. This gives your tweet great exposure, however it also gives your tweet some “credibility”.

What Google appear to be looking at is not only how many times your tweet gets retweeted, but also by whom. If you get a tweet retweeted by someone with 1000’s of followers (and add to that the number of followers THEIR followers have) then Google is likely to see your tweet as a valuable piece of information (and give your website some credit back as a result).

Which means two things for businesses and website owners.

1. Get on Twitter – engage, socialise, tell us about your stuff and tell us interesting things about your industry. Be the expert (or at least display a good level of knowledge) about the area you are supposed to be respresenting.

2. Ensure your blog and tweets (that you want retweeting) are about the subject matter on your website. My guess would be that tweets that people find funny (and retweet) will have no bearing on your website (unless you are a comedian).