Just last week, both Google and Bing confirmed that they look at ’social signals’ from both Facebook and Twitter as part of their ranking factors when they were interviewed by Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Land. Over the past year, both search engines have been adding multiple social features; such as the inclusion of live tweets in Google search results, and Bing showing Facebook social data that were “liked by your friends”. With the release of this latest interview, it is quite certain that the links shared using Facebook and Twitter have a direct impact on rankings.

These new signals are a new way of thinking outside of traditional ranking factors, especially since Facebook and Twitter both use the “no follow” attribute on external links to prevent them from being credited with link equity. Rather, it can be said that these new signals of relevance assign ’social equity’ to websites and particular pages that have a strong presence in the social media space. (more…)