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So just how does Google consider the links that we post in Twitter and Facebook – will they be considered as incoming links to our website and help us get found online in the search engines?

That’s a question that Matt Cutts answers in a recent YouTube video.

Matt talks about the fact that many people don’t have their Facebook profile visible – that they keep it private. However he forgot to mention that for businesses we can use Facebook Pages which are automatically public and therefore visible even if someone is not a fan of your Facebook page. That means that the search engine robots can crawl your page.

Matt does however comment that on Twitter, most links are designated ‘no follow’ and therefore will not count towards being an incoming link to your website or blog. He goes on to say:

At least in our web search (our organic rankings), we treat links the same from Twitter or Facebook or, you know, pick your favorite platform or website, just like we’d treat links from Wordpress or .edu or.gov or anything like that. It’s not like a link from an .edu automatically carries more weight or a link from a .gov automatically carries more weight. But, the specific platforms might have issues, whether it’s not being crawled or it might be nofollow. It would keep those particular links from flowing pagerank.

This confirms to me that this is another great reason that a Facebook Page so long it is nurtured, managed and provides value for your community is a great way to build your visibility online. I don’t advocate a Facebook Page instead of a website or business blog – but in my experience with clients it’s a great place to start if you have no web presence or to support your online marketing. What do you think?