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Google PageRank Impacts Your Twitter Profile

google-pagerank-twitterGoogle Page Rank, mention that phrase in a room (virtual or otherwise) of SEO juggernauts, and it spikes a hearty discussion at a minimum. Google’s measuring stick of a web pages value has been debated from being paramount, to irrelevant. Whatever side of the fence you are on, the numbers don’t lie. Have you looked at your sites page rank lately? How about your Twitter profile? With recent changes in how page rank is calculated, it is obviously not irrelevant to Google, and is worth another look.

Google PageRank Impacts Your Twitter Profile

It appears there has been a change in Google Page Rank.  This has helped many, and hurt others.  Specifically page rank for many popular Twitter users has gone down.

Interestingly, many blogs and websites have benefited from recent changes (including this one), which is an indicator to me that Google is very interested in Twitter and other social media public profile pages.

Helping Google Help Others

It is worth pausing and thinking about Google’s motivation, as it says in their mission statement “to organize the world’s information…” the best way they do this, is by providing relevant and reliable results to searchers… This mindset is worth having for any search engine marketing strategy.  Help Google help others.  Google helps searchers make sense of it all.  Now that social media is on the scene, they are rewarding profiles that help them fulfill their mission.

What is Google Looking For?

What they are looking at specifically on social profile pages like Twitter is up for debate, but if history has taught us anything it likely falls along the lines of:

  • Credible inbound links from sources with credible inbound links
  • Quality thematic content in their Twitter stream (jumping from dog training to affiliate marketing, to dieting in your twitter stream may get different results than sticking to one theme or topic of discussion… key phrases).
  • Outbound links to credible sources.

It wouldn’t surprise me if they are also looking at social measures (retweets, locations, and @ replies).

How To Respond?

No major news alert here, overall I think the changes are good.  It shows that Google is concerned, and interested in Twitter.  Just bear in mind when you tweet, Google is taking notice (as are your followers).

  • Tweet in a way (key phrases) that readers and search engines know what you are talking about.
  • Be resourceful (links), and converse using @ (links)
  • When you are retweeted (inbound link) thank Tweeple.
  • Make sure your other social profiles have links to you Twitter profile
  • Goes without saying, always error on the side of tweeting for followers not the search engines.

Interested in checking PR for your Twitter profile page, or website?  There are many places to do it, I found checking Google PR here to be good place (thanks to @Zee for the reference).

Chime in: Have you noticed changes in Google PageRank on your Twitter profile?  Is Twitter worth including in your Search Engine Markteing Strategy?

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Comments

  • Seo
    Thank you very much for this usefull seo information.
  • Great insights. Thanks for sharing this.
  • This is what I saw around a month ago. My profile was a PR4 now it's a PR1- I've been on Twitter for over 700+ days and do all the things you mentioned here but still dropped. It might be followers, I don't have that many and don't follow that many. I guess it's all relevant to the changes happening in search today.
  • Greg- No doubt there is a level of mystery here. And given the latest words from Matt Cutts on PR sculpting, things are changing (as always) in how Google calculates PR. @wbaustin commented above that PR changes if you use a forward slash or not at the end of the twitter handle in the URL. I have two accounts, one is roughly a year old and has PR2 without "/" and PR3 with. The newer account (6mos) has PR5 and PR0 respectively.

    Any PR gurus out there that might offer some insight?
  • Good evening Travis.

    I guess I have a question for @mattcutts ...

    The Google Toolbar actually shows two different PageRank values for my twitter profile now.

    Does Google actually believe that http://twitter.com/wbaustin/ (PR4) and http://twitter.com/wbaustin (PR2) are different pages?

    Inquiring minds want to know.
  • Bill-

    For that I would be just as curious! Let's see if he responds to your question here. On a sidenote, did you also try the PR tool referenced above in this post to see what it says?
  • @mattcutts @mpdotcom I did not try that tool but I certainly could. Usually after a toolbar PR update is complete, the toolbar values are fairly consistent across data centers.

    The results with the tool are the same - no / PR2 with / PR4

    Another friend has - no / PR5 with / PR0

    and your twitter profile is the same as his - no / PR5 with / PR0
  • Noticed this. I was a 5 and am now down to a 2? Seems fairly arbitrary.
  • Stuart-

    Thanks for stopping by. Indeed, Google is making changes to provide more relevant results to users. The mystery lies in knowing *exactly* what has changed. In my experience the exact detail isn't necessary to profit online, there are enough clues to succeed in most markets.
  • Exactly. I think we could all be better served by knowing a bit more about what is behind the curtain :).
  • Travis,

    I haven't checked my PR in some time. I don't have it in my Firefox browser. I have added a ranking called Twingly on my blog. http://www.twingly.com/enterprise/blogsearch I have a blog rank of 3 according to this site. Check out the top 100: http://www.twingly.com/top100

    On prchecker.info my blog has a PR of 3. I have had >5 in the past.
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Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. I'm here to share what I can from my lessons marketing online. With sizeable investments in continuing education, various software products and services, I have had some winners, and some losers. One way I can extend what I've learned is by writing about it, here... and helping you along the way.

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