UPDATE – On reflection, I do not think this article is accurate proof. *****
UPDATE – Google confirmed they use Twitter!
Google Alerts, which you can use to alert you if Google finds a mention of your brand name or site, picked out this page (in an alert) for ‘Hobo+Google’ – (WARNING – I edited profanity from the images):
….at first I just put it down to another mad result from very quirky Google Alerts, but
- the word ‘hobo’ IS NOT on the page
- the keyword ‘Hobo’ IS in the link URL behind that Bit.ly short-link:
- That Bit.ly URL is nofollowed though, and
- Google ‘seems’ to be going through a 301 redirect at Bit.ly too, to get to that image too
Takeaways
Effectively this page is relevant for the term Hobo+Google, even though one of the words is behind a redirected nofollowed link (we already know Google has access to Twitter’s data, and it seems from this and other Tweets I have looked at, Google clearly gets access to Twitter data before nofollow and the bit.ly redirect is applied or recognised).
Or else how could Google work this ‘relevance’ out in this case?
I don’t spend much time looking at Twitter at all, but it’s kind of clear Google is treating Twitter links differently at Google Alerts level at least. Maybe this effect just won’t make it into Google SERPS, but be useful for discovery purposes (which I have heard some folk talking about but not quite like this)
Any thoughts?
It’s certainly appears as if Google ignores the bit.ly link too and perhaps just sees it as a straight link, and includes that link as keywords within the page, or is awarding relevance because of the linked image.
Although it’s uncertain, this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow suggests that Google may follow nofollow links but not flow any PageRank. Alternatively, that image might have already been in Google’s index and Google simply recognised that page from the redirected URL of the Twitter link and put two and two together to come up with a relevant result. In any case, interesting stuff.
Two options here: 1. G may have some kind of deal with Twitter that allows them access to the raw data prior to going through bitly and the nofollow process. 2. G have deliberately modified their algo for sites like Twitter. Rationale? It’s a race. All the search engines want the most relevant data in order to encourage searchers to use their offerings so why not break your own rules in order to win? In all likelihood, the first option is the most plausible but, as I love a conspiracy theory, I’m sticking with number 2 :)
I seem to remember Matt Cutts saying that Google was effectively ignoring the nofollow attribute. What he said was that in relation to link juice, the nofollow no longer stopped it leaking, but that it did not pass on to the linked-to site. In other words a nofollow will leak your link juice without passing on the benefit of the link to the site you link to. Apparently this had been the case for some time but they never told anybody because “nobody noticed”. I even wrote a blog post about it back in January… Nofollows are a waste of time Could it be that Google is now ignoring them completely? You could be the first to notice a new change! Or it could be a Twitter specific phenomenon as you wrote. By the way, loving your blog. Ian.
I have noticed other peculiarities also in google alerts but don’t have much time/knowledge to understand why a particular result is being displayed.
This seems like a nice improvement Shaun. But i’ve seen in several other articles that Google does treat twitter links differently. I’ve even read one on seomoz that shows that, links from twitter get indexed faster on Google even though they are nofollowed :)
Had to laugh that the tweet took us to a picture of Robert Pattinson…if you can attach your brand to that guy I think you’re probably set for the next few years… If Google can deliver results like that then currrent SEO won’t change much if bit ly links are counted. Same on-page optimization rules would apply etc. I imagine bit ly/Twitter links won’t be very significant votes though. Twitter seems like a spammer’s paradise so that’s what I’m hoping anyway.
Google counts nofollow links. In fact, I have read several places that Google measures the ratio of follow vs. nofollow links. here is a passage from one blog I read; “Having too few nofollow links relative to dofollow links on your site MAY set off alarm bells for search engines, especially Google’s, as a sign that you are engaging in buying links. This is increasingly being penalized by Google, which looks for a ‘natural’ ratio of nofollow and dofollow links.”
Yes. You have read. I have read too, and I’ve read differently, too. :)
Twitter’s own search picks up domain references in shortened links. Thus an ego search on andybeard picks up all references (or most of them) irrespective of whether my name or account was mentioned. Just being in the domain that was shortened was enough.
Do we need to worry about the nofollow being ignored, I use this when testing newly uploaded sites, (quicker than a temp firewall mod), or is it just a Google/Twitter related issue, time will tell!
I think generally speaking its no bad thing to get some links from your twitter stream to content on your site. Google seems to penetrate the nofollow and the the url shortners. Perhaps Google deems the twitter content fresh and user driven therefore can choose to excercise discretion over the no follow? Who knows? The other spin off benefit I have noticed is that tweets are often republished on various sites using the twitter api to add fresh tweets/content to their pages. Not the best backlinks, but hey, they’re freebies.
That’s all very interesting. I’ve been getting a lot of weird google alerts lately and sometimes I cannot figure out where this is but I never thought about checking through the bit.ly or ow.ly link (silly me!) Anyway, will be a regular subscriber after receiving this. Cheers!