02 December 2010 | Author: N. Hamilton Media copywriter
The web's search giants have again struck up conversation about social search, as both Bing and Google have told SearchEngineLand.com they are beginning to set more stock in social signals - data collected from Twitter and Facebook - to rank search results.
Both Microsoft and Mountain View told the website that while they had added social search features over the years, they had now moved to interpreting "social signals" in order to higher place the pages more likely to appeal to social network-using web wanderers.
The search rivals had earlier disclosed they were actively developing ways to allow a web user's social network or "social context" to better return personalised search results as search turns ever more social.
Directly questioning both Bing and Google representatives, the search website discovered both search engines were increasingly looking to develop algorithms gauging "human authority" in much the same way they determine a web page's authority by relevance, trustworthiness and link quality.
"We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results," Bing said.
Google, meanwhile, agreed that if an article was retweeted or referenced on Twitter they would count that as a signal that non-followed links could naturally result and, "by marking how many people shared an article," Mountain View said it would also be able to enhance its news ranking.
SearchEngineLand.com said both search engine's responses highlight the growing influence of Twitter - with retweets said to be the newest form of link building.
"In the end, it's clear that Twitter data especially plays a role in web search, these days. Who you are is being understood. Are you a trusted authority or not? If there's PageRank for pages, both search engines have a form of TwitterRank for people," the website said.
"Meanwhile, retweets serve as a new form of link building. Get your page mentioned in tweets by authoritative people, and that can help your ranking in regular search results, to a degree."
Getting personal: Bing and Google talk social search
The web's search giants have again struck up conversation about social search, as both Bing and Google have told SearchEngineLand.com they are beginning to set more stock in social signals - data collected from Twitter and Facebook - to rank search results.Both Microsoft and Mountain View told the website that while they had added social search features over the years, they had now moved to interpreting "social signals" in order to higher place the pages more likely to appeal to social network-using web wanderers.
The search rivals had earlier disclosed they were actively developing ways to allow a web user's social network or "social context" to better return personalised search results as search turns ever more social.
Directly questioning both Bing and Google representatives, the search website discovered both search engines were increasingly looking to develop algorithms gauging "human authority" in much the same way they determine a web page's authority by relevance, trustworthiness and link quality.
"We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results," Bing said.
Google, meanwhile, agreed that if an article was retweeted or referenced on Twitter they would count that as a signal that non-followed links could naturally result and, "by marking how many people shared an article," Mountain View said it would also be able to enhance its news ranking.
SearchEngineLand.com said both search engine's responses highlight the growing influence of Twitter - with retweets said to be the newest form of link building.
"In the end, it's clear that Twitter data especially plays a role in web search, these days. Who you are is being understood. Are you a trusted authority or not? If there's PageRank for pages, both search engines have a form of TwitterRank for people," the website said.
"Meanwhile, retweets serve as a new form of link building. Get your page mentioned in tweets by authoritative people, and that can help your ranking in regular search results, to a degree."
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