When Will Google Begin Devaluing Social Links; Such As Digg.com, Yahoo! Answers & del.icio.us?
A slow but very interesting WebmasterWorld thread asks, "Is Googe Devaluing "Social Content" Links?" Tedster, WebmasterWorld Admin, said;
It's not a big secret. Webmasters looking for a ranking boost have been using "web 2.0" tactics for quick link building. Even folks with long-established sites began to dabble in this trendy area. It sounds pretty innocent, doesn't it? The question is being asked even by major corporate web teams. While this trend mushroomed, I've been wondering how long it might take for the Google algo to defend against this kind of link, which really is not the kind of "earned vote" that they most want to reward. So, has the time arrived?
This is all stemming from that Google Webmaster Central blog post named Building link-based popularity that also sprung this debate.
Now, Google tells us to "focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy." But it is my understanding, that the point behind these social sites are that they are the human vote. To get to the top page of Digg.com, please need to like your content, and if people don't then you won't get on the top page. Why do SEOs want to get to the front page of Digg? Well, not only does is send a lot of quick traffic, it also encourages Digg users and others to blog about your content. That means more links. More eye balls, more links.
So you have two obstacles here. Assuming that a link on Digg.com in the eyes of the search engines may be valued at a normal level. The SEOs first need to get their content on Digg.com, ranking well. The second thing is they need to have people write and link to their content on their own sites.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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rustybrick in Google Optimization at December 20, 2006 8:04 AM
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Seems to me that links you get based on being on the front page of DIgg, as well as from other social sites, do represent endorsements.
It may be unfair, because certain people have much better access to this than others, but I am skeptical that search engines will do anything about it. After all, even without these sites, certain people have better access to high quality links than others do too.
Posted by Eric Enge at December 20, 2006 11:27