Social Networks Steal Your Search Engine Traffic
Did you know that many of the more popular and even the less popular social bookmarking and networking sites steal traffic from your blog? It is true! If you don’t beleive me look at this screen shot:
In this screen shot, you will see that I wrote a post on my blog titled, Will Smoking Crack Help You Buy Better Domain Names?” However, and interestingly enough, in this screen shot you also see how many of the more popular social networking sites rank in the SERPs and actually compete against my listing in the search engines.
In this screen shot you will see that I have to compete with Digg, UrlFan, BlogCatalog and in many cases MyBlogLog and StumbleUpon (both not shown). While some people say that this is a good thing, I don’t believe so. Some people would say that I am totally dominating the SERP page. While that may seem true, keep in mind what the results of this page would look like if the social networks weren’t listed here with me. My listing would be competing with many of the second page results, which are very much less relevant, thus making my listing extremely noticable.
Ok, maybe you think I am wrong… but who cares? Fact is fact… when you have social networking sites that rank for the same exact phrase right next to your very own blog post in the SERPS, you indeed lower the chance that your listing will get clicked on. If a person clicks on the listing that points to a social network, you simply reduce the chance that the user will click again from the social network to your blog.
Ok, maybe you still think I am wrong… but who cares? Let me ask you this: How much traffic has MyBlogLog sent you in the last month? How much traffic has BlogCatalog sent you in the last two? While that information can be attained, you will never know how much potential traffic you have lost from search. If you want my opinion, I believe that thousands of blogs are voluntarily making these places more popular when they might not should be.
MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog syndicate your hard developed unique content. When you sign up for these places, you might not even think twice about this, but they ask you for your Blog RSS Feed URL. The reason why they do that is so they can syndicate your content on their web site, which makes their web site bigger, stronger and more powerful. Take a look at this screen shot:
This is a screen shot of my MyBlogLog.com page that syndicates the content found here on my personal blog. You will see that it is an exact copy. What happens is when people who use search engines, such as Google, and search for the exact phrase of my post title, these social networks, such as MyBlogLog.com and BlogCatalog.com, will end up competing against me in the search engine result pages.
Do places like MyBlogLog.com, BlogCatalog.com, Digg.com and even StumbleUpon.com help you make money online? Do any of these places deliver traffic that converts into the action you are seeking? (i.e. Google AdSense Click, Affiliate Product Lead or Sale, etc.)
If your answer is no, then why are you wasting your time using them? Secondly, why are you just opening your front door to your blog and allowing them to steal your content FOR FREE!!!
If syndicating your content on sites like this doesn’t help you increase your productive traffic and if it doesn’t help you make money and yet the only thing I see it does do, is puts your blog at risk of losing search engine traffic, then what logical reason do you have in using places like this.
Seriously, someone come here and leave me a comment and give me a good reason why people should voluntarily give their content away to these places for free.
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20 comments
Since my blog is relatively new, I would prefer social sites to index it. Of recent, there was a CNN spam email. I blogged about it but I ranked no where on searched engine. But when I dugg it, my dugg was on the first page on google if someone searches for CNN Top 10 spam email on that day.
and how much money did that make you?
Indeed you can piggy back off Digg for sure. I have even blogged about that in the past. However, if you are into search engine marketing then if you have to depend on Digg.com to act as a HUB between the search engine and your content, then you might be attempting to target the wrong keywords.
What I dont get G-man is this, and I’m sure its very simple as are most things I dont understand, is when you go to your fave social network page, your links are no-followed right? you know your content and page links and what not, so how is that they appear to compete in the serps with the source (your post) if theyre being no-followed?
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Well, those sites are just displaying titles and some descriptions so I guess I’m not giving them my whole article.
MyBlogLog’s syndication service was designed to get you more exposure for your blog. We use your RSS feed to extract the headline, snippet, and tags off your posts and re-distribute them across mybloglog.com so that your articles get more exposure.
The idea is to get your article in front of as many people as possible with the articles showing up on your:
community page:
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/garryconn/
new with me lifestream:
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/GarryConn/
and topic pages which aggregate around your article tags:
http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/topics/socialnetworkmarketing
We also hooked up with the Yahoo Messenger team and headlines of your posts are now part of your Status window if you’ve opt-ed in and your contacts are using the Windows Messenger 9.0 Beta
http://mybloglogb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/06/is-that-a-blog.html
As you point out, adding your RSS feed to your profile is voluntary but we hope you take advantage of the service.
Check out Ian Kennedy’s last blog post..Some widget love using the MyBlogLog API
Hrmmm, interesting article!
Without being biased, Digg only shows a description of the article so if the user goes to the digg article and like your description wouldnt they click through to your blog?
Sure… that is a possibility. However, keep in mind that Post Title and the Post Excerpt is really all that is needed to rank very well in the SERPS. So when you have someone who submits your article into Digg.com they actually do a very good job with writing the description in terms of SEO. They have a limited number of characters they can use, and they typically pack keywords into the description (not even being aware that they are helping the SEO).
Look at this screen shot:
You asked,
Yeah, but also you have to consider the fact that Digg.com monetizes these pages for a reason. They don’t do it simply for shit’s and giggles. They are in it for the money. If people didn’t click these ads, Digg.com would put them some where else. So with that said, you do indeed LOSE traffic. Also, consider their navigation menu, consider all the different options and distractions. Voting… what happens after you vote? You can get a list of related stuff similar to what you just voted on.
Make no mistake, Digg.com designs their site with very tactical precision towards hoarding and keeping the traffic internally. They continue to get popular in the SERPs, because idiots submit their content into their network. Digg.com is stupid. It might work nice for publishers who want to have a million people see their blog post about two 21 year old lesbo’s dancing in their bra and underwear, but Digg.com doesn’t do anything for me. Never has and never will. Digg.com is dead to MMO.
and that is all that is needed to rank in the SERPS.
Post Title
125 word description that has keyword phrases that compliment the Post Title, coupled with Digg.com holding a lot of weight in the SERPs, equals a listing that ranks very well and at times better than your own listing in the SERPs.
[...] do you much good. Recently Garry Conn has decided to give up on it. He wrote a great post titled, Social Networks Steal Your Search Engine Traffic and I have to say that I really enjoyed reading his post. I agree 100% with him and can see the [...]
Hahahah, I’ve always wondered about this stuff man…it’s true, social networks trump you and most are designed like Amazon.com, so that you never leave!
Think about it, you go to amazon to buy a book and what happens? You get mad different suggestions and add-on offers…this is what social networks/bookmarking sites do..
You go, vote, get suggestions, similar posts, hot topics and all that lol.
Great post ConnMan
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Ian,
I appreciate you taking the time to come here and leave me a supportive comment. However, I fully aware of the intention and the purpose behind MyBlogLog.com. Intention is very much different from action. Meaning, while I hear what you are saying, it is the goal of MyBlogLog.com to help blogs get more exposure, while unfortunately that is NOT the case. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Blogs are helping MyBlogLog.com get traffic, not the other way around.
I usually keep my traffic stats private. However, at times I have to really buckle down and use certain elements to get my point across.
From August 1st thru August 14th 2008, I have had 75,055 unique visits to my blog. MyBlogLog has only contributed 133 visits towards this total.
Year to date… (this is where it gets juicy) I have had near 790,000 unique visits to my blog. Only 989 visits of the 789,219 unique visits I have had all year came from MyBlogLog.com.
August 1st Thru August 14th
Year To Date (01/01/08 thru 08/22/08)
While I do appreciate you taking the time to comment, please… lets make no mistake. MyBlogLog.com does not send me traffic. And I can only imagine how much free traffic I as well as thousands of other bloggers send to MyBlogLog.com.
I have no hard feelings against MyBlogLog.com. I think its a fun community. But, MyBlogLog.com does not send me traffic, and traffic is what I need to make money.
What MyBlogLog.com does do, is builds search engine friendly and machine readable pages off my syndicated content which in return allows MyBlogLog.com to grow in the search engines such as Google and your very own, Yahoo! Inc.
Wow, those are some absolutely horrible referral stats Garry!
I think I will no longer be adding my content to MyBlogLog as well. Like you said, we (those that are adding their post information into MyBlogLog) are only providing them with traffic while they provide us with very little to no traffic whatsoever.
This is a really great article that you have wrote. I think the only people that have success with social networking are those that boast about how much they make online. All of the newbies are interested in how much they make, they want to know how they themselves can make that much and they will do anything for the blogger/marketer in the hopes that they receive attention.
You need three main things for ranking. Properly selected keywords, Proper on-site SEO, and links (as far as Google, right).
So if your post is in Stumble, Digg, MyBlogLog that is 3 links.
Then some fellow bloggers link, let’s say 5 links.
Maybe some deep link directories, another 2 links.
Won’t those 10 links push you to the top (assuming no one else had done the indentical with 11 links). I realize this is rather simplistic.
So someone sees your heading in Digg. They vote. They need to click-thru to read the entire post, right. And that traffic is potential money, right?
You did show 28,000 visits from Stumble. Are you saying those visits didn’t earn enough money to compensate for the fact that you also helped Stumble have better rankings?
At this point, I haven’t had much time for the social stuff. Sounds like you are of the opinion that, that is just as well.
[...] Garry Conn – Social Networks Steal Your Search Engine Traffic [...]
So, Garry, I understand it doesn’t give you direct traffic and some checks for search terms have BlogCatalogue etc ranking higher than the actual blog post but are these still good to get your blog ranking better in the search engines or not.
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Another interesting read Garry – I personally stopped actively submitting my posts a few months back and had only done a couple since then. The main reason I’ve been submitting in the past, which I believe I read here on the site was for dofollow backlinks – do you think it’s not even worth “competing” with your Digg/Propeller entry on the Google results page?
This has made me take anotehr look at my Google Analytics (something I do too much as it is really anyway), but anyway, I see that MyBlogLog sent me 13 visitors in the last month and BlogCatalog wasn’t much better with only 31. I’m thinking that the real-estate I’m giving to those widgets on my sidebar isn’t worth that level of traffic.
You’re really making me think these days Garry, perhaps there does come a time to focus on what you’re good at – I spent a couple of hours yesterday going through Stumbles that had been sent to me – mind you at least I get a over a 1000 visits in a month from that source, but it probably isn’t worth my time in what I could do in terms of researching and writing a post which could earn me money.
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Hey,
Interesting post. I’ve always seen this happen — like all the time. I never really payed any mind to it. However, it does make a lot of sense to me.
I never submit my own content to Digg, but what’s going to stop other people from doing it?
As long as other people submit your content to Digg, the problem will be there — I think.
Great post!
P.S. that jumping alligator was driving me nuts; I could barely concentrate on what you wrote.
I note a funny contrast between this post against social networks and your new addition of the socializing buttons in your rss feed.
Schizophrenia ? LOL
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I think it’s a little too simplistic to assume that these other sites value lies in the direct traffic that they send to you. The piece that is missing is the quality of the traffic that they send you, and whether you would have received that traffic directly if they didn’t rank higher for the same content. From a pure search engine ranking perspective, that makes sense, but what if the people who are finding you are not coming from a search in google? And what if some of those people would not have found you at all otherwise, but liked your site enough to subscribe, or to become regular readers. For this type of site, I’d take regular readers over quantity any day.
Check out JB’s last blog post..Stressed Out? Take Time Off!
This so called win-win situation that they want you to believe is really tilted towards their favor. I do get a fair bit of traffic from social networking sites, but I find they tend not to stick around for long – contributing to a high bounce rate.
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