We lost 100,000 links yesterday
Ever since Twitter launched the API loads of people have been delivering cool applications and a side benefit was that the links to those applications were not nofollow links. The API links are under each tweet where it says something like:
3 minutes ago from TweetDeck
Then a couple of SEO bloggers decided to blog about How to Get DoFollow Links on Twitter and sure enough a week later those links were nofollowed meaning that it’s now totally impossible to get a decent link from Twitter even in your profile.
We run a popular Twitter app which has been used over 100,000 times which means there are over 100,000 links – all of which are worthless from an SEO point of view. Of course the app wasn’t ever designed for SEO but it’s still not nice to lose that many links in one day.
The problem with blogging about SEO is you can never give away any tips that actually work because Google and any sites involved will close the loopholes within days. Mention a great site that gives out links and it won’t last the week.
Good tips no longer get shared on blogs as people move to private forums and internal discussions instead.
Perhaps that’s the reason most big blogs stop writing decent tips and start to just publish the latest news or generic marketing type content instead.
Post category: Search Engine Optimisation, Twitter Tweet
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Good thought. I was thinking the same thing myself when I first read the atricle.
As soon as it gets mentioned, It is GOING to get picked up by the search engines and others.
I feel for you Patrick. I can only image the colourful words used in the office when the links got nofollowed.
I know it’s morbid, but I’d be interested to see if you lose rankings and traffic as a result of losing 100k links.
Sorry to hear that Patrick, like Rick I was a bit worried when that article first appeared that it would get clamped down on…
via: @David Lindop…. Would definitly be intresting to see what the results are Patrick.
any chance you could keep us updated?
Good point, however it does grate as an inhouse’r that I rely on agencies/communities to inform me as to good tips as I’m too busy to devote as much time to SEO research to discover these. Then if these places STFU then its tough to find info.
Mainly I’d say places like SEOmoz pro, and agency training courses.
Also – this tactic was also mentioned out loud at SMX london in one of the main conference sessions without anything happening…
I’ve noticed and Tweeted this about it:
To bad they do so, when they should fight spam. Twitter is becoming the next Wikipedia, not following any outbound links.
To be fair Nicky blogged about this in March 2008 so the SEs aren’t that quick at acting on the information. Like Matt Cutts said about the Twitter biography links, after it hits his radar a few times he decides to do something about it. He even pointed to Nicky’s post at Sphinn where it hit the front page.
But yes, private forums and member’s areas are definitely the way forward. There’s little gain in blogging about this type of thing, aside from a link from Matt once he puts an end to it
Seriously though, I still think these types of ‘exploits’ are just tricks, if they are forming part of your strategy then you have issues to deal with.
I know this isn’t the case with you Patrick but to hear some people you would think they had lost their advantage. Loopholes are short term.
That is why bloggers really need to stop letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing. Yeah it may make for a great post but in the end, they are giving the enemy weapons to use against them.
This is why I rarely blog anymore and when I do, I never disclose thinks like specific link opportunities. It’s just a bad, bad idea.
You lost 100,000 links, but you only lost 1 referrer. I don’t want to take away from the main point of this article – that is, that you provided a useful tool that garnered links from people that truly should pass trust value – however, link diversity is often more important than link quantity.
Additionally, since this affected every tool in the Twitter tool space, everyone is still on an equal playing field.
While I would be fairly unhappy if this happened to me personally, I would hold judgment on this until this changed the overall rankings of my site. I have a feeling losing 100,000 links from 1 referrer is going to feel a lot less painful than it sounds.
I don’t see why these links should be nofollow. The strongest links would be from authority figures using your app to tweet, correct? If so why shouldn’t you get credit for that (in the form of a followed link).
I feel your pain. I made the Twitter Toolbar for Firefox, and noticed the same. I lost about 30,000. The good news is that the toolbar still has a couple of links to my site, so I may no longer be gaining rank, but I am still at least getting genuine visitors using the tool.
Ahh that must have sucked!
Why did Twitter decide to do this? Was the server slowing down or something?
I’m new into Twitter so the linking strategies within the site are kinda fuzzy.
Why are more people switching to forums now?
I don’t understand why they’d nofollow it. What are they gaining? Even if they nofollow it, they’re link juice IS flowing. Only difference is, that the URL won’t get it, but still it’s flowing away.
It’s better if they dofollow’d it again, they’re not gaining anything with it anyway. Losers.
Twitter applying the nofollow on those links is something that would’ve be done soon enough, perhaps it was already planned for the date it was applied and the blog post about Twitter had no influence?
I can’t believe Twitter would’ve let that last that forever.
Those type of links are good when they last, but you know the hammer is falling down on them…it’s just a matter of when…it sucks but you know it’s going to happen soon enough.
Totally agree with Navin. Are those 140 tweets going to get more credibility now because the don’t link out? Any blog post will beat a tweet in the rankings. I think they just shot themselves in the foot.
Yes you are right Patrick, its been bombarding of links on Twitter.
Didn’t anyone at all notice the big ruckus about Matt Cutts and nofollow a few months back? Your 100,000 links may be “nofollow”‘d but it doesn’t necessarily “follow” that they’re worthless
I agree that its not worth giving top tips away by blogging about them – its best just to tell a select few. This is why you will never find good stuff if you search for ‘advanced seo tips’.
Losing that many links is a killer. Using this positively, it could drive creativity in future link building.
Thats a huge loss for serps
This is a punishment that makes no sense. If thousands of people are using your application, then you deserve those links because you got them legitimately. Your application is popular, and you are being rewarded by people linking to it. A long, long time ago, this was called natural link popularity. Adding no-follow tags used to have a specific purpose beyond “I’m going to be a douchebag and ad them just because you pointed out that certain links on my site bleed juice.”
It is interesting because, from Google’s point of view, Twitter is a valuable source of information. Once, as usual, you cut through the spam you will find a great deal of information on what people are reading, linking to, doing etc so why would Google want to ignore all of that.
If I were Google (I’m not!) I would look at a way of leveraging it for search engine rankings. At the end of the day all Google cares about is getting good results and if a site like Twitter is big enough to mine for information then why not? Who knows what goes on behind the scenes!
However my own view is that Twitter should be used for its intended purpose, or arguably not at all! The spammers on there certainly turn me off and no one can deny that they are starting to get a foothold on the site. If Twitter doesn’t act soon they may well see a downturn because of it.
Wow, 100,000? That’s a real dent! It’s unfortunate that it happened so soon after that post was made – it would have been interesting to see if Twitter would of picked up on that bit by itself
That really hurts. 100,000 links!
That really sucks. I found this out but decided not to publicise it. Why can’t some people just keep quiet and let the good times roll? Hopefully there is a big lesson to be learnt from this
just goes to show that good tips should be kept a secret. Anything that takes money away from the big boys will always result in a backlash. Well, at least twitter did not suspend your account.
These links even though they are nofollow will help in some way for seo.
That’s a huge loss…
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August 18, 2009 at 10:40am