SEO Considerations – Google Buzz vs Twitter

Google Buzz has generated a ton of interest, “is it better than Twitter? Frienfeed? Should Facebook be scared?”  The debates will continue.  One thing I didn’t see too much chatter about was the SEO impact of either service.  I decided to use one of the Firefox SEO Plugins to do a quick analysis, and captured a screenshot comparing two profile pages.  There is a lot that can be discussed here, but this is what stands out to me.

SEO Considerations – Google Buzz vs Twitter

The first thing I noticed was the difference between “follow” links and “nofollow” links.  If you want a full rundown on these link attributes see the nofollow links article on Wikipedia.  Essentially followed links benefit the links target (destination page), where as nofollow link targets don’t.  That benefit changes with each search engine algorithm update, but the idea is it will result in higher rankings for target sites whose link was followed. Search engines use this approach to evaluate the value of a page to a searcher, and determine its placement on the SERP (What is a SERP and Why It’s Important) The Firefox plugin highlights the offending “nofollow” links in pink.

You’ll notice there are quite a few of those nofollow links in the screenshot of MarketingProfessor’s Twitter profile.

The Question

The ethical question surfaces, “As a website owner do you have a site follow or no follow external links?”  If you follow, you are seen as a nice guy, (but are subject to spammers), if you don’t follow, you can be seen as a not-so-nice guy.

Below is a screenshot of my Google Profile. You’ll notice that all the links are followed.

An Observation

What is very interesting to me, is that Google does follow links in Google Buzz that were piped in from Twitter.  Socially speaking, many have complained of those who tweet often, and pipe those updates in Google Buzz (Stop shouting, Start dialoguing).  More recently, the impact of these type of links on search engine rankings has been debated somewhat heatedly (see post by Matt Cutts, a Google employee, entitled PageRank sculpting).

I noticed something else too, both profile pages have a Google PageRank of 6 (same as our YouTube channel)…but that’s a discussion for another post.

Is this a worthwhile concern?  Does it make your head hurt?  Thoughts on it’s impact on Google’s Social Real Time Results?  Other ideas?