The impact of social media on SEO cannot be understated. Because search engines frown on links acquired for ranking benefits, approaching link building via the organic process – creating linkbait – has risen to prominence.
The idea behind linkbait is to create something people will want to link too. With the explosion of the Web 2.0 user-created content generation, a group that actively links out, social media outlets (Digg, Reddit, Sphere) have become primary targets. In fact, social media optimization (SMO) has become so popular, over at the Yahoo Search Marketing blog; Edwin Wong has posted an entry explaining how to leverage this phenomenon.
The main focus of the post is to inform readers about brand advocates and how they can help with the promotion process. This point was bolstered by a story explaining how user-generated content (a blog) influenced the purchase of Casio digital camera, a brand not necessarily recognized in this particular industry. The blog in question spoke of the quality of these cameras and because of that, Casio now has a new customer where they might not have before.
Wong’s story illustrates the impact of social media can have on the consumption process. Word-of-mouth directly affected the outcome of this sale. Because of that, you can see why Yahoo is so supportive of SMO, especially when it comes to marketing your goods online.
However, can these same social media sites be used to harm potential competitors? Yes, absolutely they can and a post from Graywolf shows you how.
Essentially, (if you’d like to know the specifics, check out his post) the process involved creating fake accounts and spamming Digg and it’s users so much they ban the URL from appearing on the site. Of course, the URL you are conducting this spam attack with is that of your competitor’s, especially if they add new content. Be sure and have your friends bury the story if it makes any of the Digg pages.
This will, in all likelihood, get your competitor’s blog or site banned from Digg, something they’ll certainly be happy with when they try to submit a legitimate story. The malicious methods being described here are similar to the techniques used by search engine spammers in the past, something Graywolf acknowledges in his post:
At this stage of the game Google is “smart enough” that they usually ignore or discount that type of thing realizing interpreting someone’s motives is a slippery slope. So how about it Digg, Netscape and all of you other social media sites, let’s lose this queen of hearts off with their head mentality, and realize the person you thought was guilty may have just been set up to take the fall.
Of course, all of the ideas discussed above – good and bad – may all become moot if search engines start devaluing social media links; a point discussed by Barry Schwartz earlier today.
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Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
