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How To Use Facebook Pixel Reporting To Identify Who Is Secretly Using Fetch And Render In GSC On Your Site

August 3, 2017 By Glenn Gabe Leave a Comment

I can see you, and now you can see me. :)

A few months ago, Dan Sharp from Screaming Frog wrote a killer post about how to use fetch and render in Google Search Console (GSC) on almost any site. Fetch and render in GSC enables you see how Googlebot is rendering any page on your site (since it fetches all necessary resources to render the page at hand, including JavaScript, CSS, images, etc.) It enables you to detect differences in how Googlebot is viewing your page versus the average user.

It’s an awesome tool and can help identify blocked resources, trouble with rendering content, etc. If you want to learn more about what you can find using fetch and render, you can check out my Search Engine Land column titled Fetch and Horror.

Dan’s global fetch and render approach was to iframe urls from another unverified website on your own domain and then use fetch and render in GSC. It works, and pretty darn well. I’ve set this up and tested it myself, and it does indeed work.

For example, here’s a third party fetch of the Big Green Egg homepage (one of my favorite grills btw):

That’s cool, but let’s face it, rendering a site that you don’t own and control does give you a creepy feeling. You aren’t really authorized to use fetch and render in GSC on any site other than your own verified site(s). So rendering another person’s site is like virtually trying on their clothes from the comfort of your own home. Yes, that sounds creepy and it’s a good analogy. You are basically “fetching around”. You might feel like this:

And for those on the opposite end (being fetched), they can feel violated when someone is fetching and rendering their urls in order to see if there are any render problems. Again, it’s all a bit creepy.

But Are You Really Invisible?… No, Everything Is Trackable
As I was testing this out via my own setup, I started wondering how easily sites being rendered without consent could tell a third party was doing this. And if they could check that easily, it could lead to some uncomfortable situations. Which leads me to my next point…

Facebook Pixel Insights, With A Twist.
I was recently checking out Facebook’s pixel reporting and noticed an interesting finding. If you’re not familiar with the Facebook pixel, it enables you to cookie any visitor to your site and then retarget them back on Facebook. It’s a powerful approach that I’ve written about several times before (especially for boosting content to various custom audiences).

As I was reviewing the pixel reporting in Facebook Business Manager, I checked the domains tab. And clicking that tab just might blow your fetch-and-rendered mind. It will show you any domain where your pixel has fired. And I mean any domain.

In theory, most sites should only see their own domain listed… so if you see others listed, then something funny could be going on (like another site scraping your pages). And of course, this would show any site that is iframing your content. And that’s exactly what you need to do in order to fetch and render another site’s urls. Do you see where this is leading?

How To Access Pixel Reporting in Facebook Business Manager
In order to view your Facebook pixel reporting, first access Facebook Business Manager. Once you do, click the hamburger menu in the upper left corner. You’ll see several options in the menu, including Pixels. Click that link in the menu and you’ll be taken to a screen that shows all of your “pixel fires”.

Once you are viewing your pixel reporting, you’ll see four tabs, including Events, URLs, Domains, and Devices. The Domains tab is the one you should check out.

When checking the list of domains in my reporting, I noticed the test domain I was using to set up global fetch and render using Dan’s approach.

Here’s what I saw:

So my own domain is listed, which is correct, but there are several others there that shouldn’t be. And one is the domain I’m using for global fetch and render. Uh oh, I caught myself. :)

Beware, Your Digital Camouflage Isn’t Perfect:
OK, this means any site using the Facebook pixel could easily see that you have been fetch and rendering their urls. Cue creepy music. Remember, everything is trackable on the web (ok, almost anything). So, before you fire up your new global fetch and render setup, just know that websites have an easy way to identify who is fetching around. And by the way, who would think that Facebook would be the one helping SEOs uncover this? Ironic, don’t you think? :)

Big Recommendation: Set up FB’s tracking pixel (for more than this reason!)
When Dan’s global fetch and render approach was published, many were thrilled to try it out (myself included). But there were some concerns about who might be fetching your own site. Now with the Facebook pixel reporting, you can easily check the domains where your pixel is firing. And if any of those domains aren’t your own, then they just might be “fetching around”.

So definitely set up the Facebook pixel, and for more than just this reason. Boosting content to custom audiences is an amazing way to help get your content in front of a very targeted audience. And now that you can see who is rendering your own content, there’s yet another benefit to installing the Facebook pixel. So do it today. It should only take you a few minutes to set up.

In closing, fetch and render is powerful, but be careful if you’re “fetching around”. Facebook apparently has the back of site owners, and those site owners just might see you poking around. See what I did there? :)

How To Save Social Shares In WordPress When Changing Domain Names, Moving To HTTPS, or Switching Permalinks (Using Social Warfare)

August 30, 2016 By Glenn Gabe 2 Comments

It’s no secret that changing urls can be dangerous SEO-wise. In the past, I’ve written heavily about the dangers of website redesigns, migrating to a new CMS, and changing domain names. Basically, whenever you mass change urls on your site, you can run into serious SEO problems. And that includes migrating to https (which many sites are doing now).

For example, there are a number of things you need to do in order to maintain search equity during the change. That includes nailing the redirection plan, properly changing canonicals, handling the site move correctly in GSC, updating your CMS settings, and more. And the redirection plan is a critically important step that enables you to pass all signals from the old urls to the new ones (on a one-to-one basis). If you don’t, you can pay dearly.

But while many people focus on the SEO aspects of changing urls (for good reason), there’s another issue that often gets overlooked. And it can also have a big impact on your business. It’s the dreaded loss of social shares.

URL Changes Are Inevitable
Every website needs to be redesigned at some point, and now many are switching to https. So, changing urls is inevitable for many business owners.

And if you have spent a lot of time publishing killer content that has built many social shares across posts, then the last thing you want to see is a major loss of shares. Social proof can be powerful, and watching a post go from 1,546 shares to 0 is enough to make even the toughest digital marketer cringe in horror.

So, we’ve got a tough situation. On the one hand, you want to improve your site, migrate to https, etc. And on the other hand, you can potentially lose all of your social shares in one fell swoop. And the social networks aren’t helping matters. Try and find solid documentation from them about retaining shares when you change urls. There’s really no strong documentation that covers the situation, which is unfortunate.

By the way, the major social networks should follow Google’s lead support-wise. Google provides an outstanding site move section in their webmaster support area. I wish Facebook, LinkedIn, and others would do the same, but that’s for another post.

Therefore, I guess we’re all in a tough situation when changing urls, right? Goodbye to those precious social shares… Woe is me…

BUT HOLD ON!

Drop the pity routine! You don’t need to settle for disappearing social shares. You don’t need to watch social proof disappear into thin air. I found an excellent solution to the problem and I’m going to share it below (and walk you through how to use it). Enter Social Warfare, your social proof savior. I think you’ll like it. <- You see what I did there? :)

Social Warfare To The Rescue With “Share Recovery”
I started using social warfare a while ago for displaying social shares on my blog and it’s a great plugin with a boatload of functionality. But, it ends up they added even more functionality that is mind-blowing, especially for someone like myself who helps a lot of companies with website redesigns. They added “Share Recovery”.

As you can guess, the smart people at Social Warfare developed a solution based on a global need. And you might actually build a statue for them after using it (as you stare at your glorious social shares from your old urls, combined with shares from your new ones). Based on my experience, it’s been a great solution.

Once you install and set up the plugin, Social Warfare will check both the old url and the new url for shares, and then combine the results. So you will have both the old shares and new shares (including any brand new shares you build over time), all wrapped into one. Awesome, right?

Several options available in the UI, plus an important hack:
I’m sure you’re wondering which types of situations are handled by the plugin? Well, most url changes are covered by Social Warfare. For example, the plugin covers:

changing permalink structure
migrating to https from http
switching from non-www to www (or vice versa)
switching to a subdomain, and of course,
changing domain names overall

Here is a screenshot of the options in the UI:

The UI in WordPress handles most of what’s listed above, but switching domain names is a little trickier (yet still relatively easy to implement). You’ll need to add a small section of code to your theme’s functions.php file instead of using the UI. I’ll cover that scenario below.

How To Save Social Shares When Changing Domain Names
Below, I’ll cover step-by-step how to retain social shares when changing your domain name. Again, you can handle several url changes using Social Warfare, but I’ll focus on switching domain names for this example. I’ll use domain1.com and domain2.com to keep this simple. Also, you obviously need to be running WordPress so you can use the Social Warfare plugin.

1. Buy, Install and Register Social Warfare
The Social Warfare plugin is not free, but it’s extremely reasonable pricing-wise. A single site license is just $29, while a package for up to five websites is $135. Once you buy the plugin, go ahead and install Social Warfare just like any other plugin. Once it’s installed, you’ll need to register the plugin.

2. Activate Share Recovery
Once you customize the styles for your plugin (optional), you can head to the “Advanced” tab. Scroll down until you see “Share Recovery” with an on/off toggle for “Activate Share Recovery”. Click the button to activate share recovery (the button will toggle and turn green.)

3. Review Previous URL Options
Note, you don’t need to change anything here when just changing domain names. But it’s good to review this list in case you had permalink changes, you are migrating to https, etc. I mentioned these options earlier in the post and this is where you would select or enter the options matching your own specific url change. But again, for straight domain name changes, you don’t need to change these options. Keep them as-is. But again, you must still activate share recovery like we did in step 2 for domain name changes.

4. Copy and Refine Code For Your Theme’s functions.php File
I mentioned earlier that a straight domain name change isn’t handled via the options in the UI. Instead, you’ll need to use the code below and paste it into your theme’s functions.php file. Then you’ll need to edit two lines of the code. Note, if you don’t know where that file is located, contact your designer or developer. They can point you to the file quickly.

Also, make sure you back up your site before making any changes. You should be doing this anyway, but it’s always good to ensure you have a backup before you make any changes (even minor ones like this). And make sure you have a backup of your functions.php file so you can always re-upload that older version if needed.

Here’s the code you need to copy :

//* Custom Share Recovery for Social Warfare add_filter('swp_recovery_filter','custom_recovery_filter'); function custom_recovery_filter($permalink) { $current_domain = 'http://www.domain1.com/'; $former_domain = 'http://www.domain2.com/'; $permalink = str_replace($current_domain,$former_domain,$permalink); return $permalink; }

5. Edit The Code, Add Your Own Domain Names
The only two lines of code you need to edit are the current domain and former domain lines. This should match your WordPress install. The easiest way to know what to put here is to check your General WordPress settings. For example, if your install is in a directory, then that will look different than a root install.

For this example, let’s say the WordPress install is in the /blog directory of your website. Then the two lines of code you enter would look like this:

$current_domain = ‘http://www.domain1.com/blog’;

$former_domain = ‘http://www.domain2.com/blog’;

Again, check your General Settings in WordPress, which will provide exactly what you should include in the code. If you don’t match that exactly, then share recovery will not work. I repeat, if this doesn’t match perfectly, your old shares will not show up.

6. Testing The Setup
Remember, “Share Recovery” must be turned on in the UI for this to work (covered earlier). So even though you are adding code to your theme’s functions.php file, you still need that option turned on in the WordPress settings for the plugin.

Next, once you upload the new functions.php file, there are querystring parameters you can add to your urls that will show the previous url at the top of the post (using the old domain name), while also rebuilding the Social Warfare cache. This will help you debug and test the setup. If you don’t clear the Social Warfare cache, then you might not see the true share count. So it may be working, but you simply won’t think it’s working. Note, the old url will only show up for you, since you are using the parameters I’ll give you in a second. Normal visitors will not see the old url.

So, add the following querystring parameters to the end of any url you want to test that has older social shares. Once you do, and refresh those urls, you should see the old url at the top of the post and then the share count should reflect shares from both the old and new urls.

Test the setup using hte following querystring parameters:
?swp_cache=rebuild&swp_recovery_debug=true

For example, if your new url was:

http://www.domain2.com/blog/sample-post/

…then the url with the parameters would be:

http://www.domain2.com/blog/sample-post/?swp_cache=rebuild&swp_recovery_debug=true

And if you already have querystring parameters at the end of your urls, then you need to append these parameters. To do that, use an ampersand (&) versus the question mark (?)

For example:
http://www.domain2.com/blog/?p=264&swp_cache=rebuild&swp_recovery_debug=true

7. Enjoy your updated share counts and benefit from social proof again.
If the share count changed (increased), you’re good to go. Please send chocolates, golf balls, or new darts to the address listed on my site. :) You can rest assured that your older posts will reflect shares from both the old url and new one (combining domains). That’s for most urls. More about that next.

Side Note: What’s up with Facebook?
Note, I’ve seen some very strange things with Facebook counts (and this is NOT just a Social Warfare issue). For some reason, Facebook will sometimes not show the accurate number of shares from the old url. It does work for many, but not for all. I can’t explain why that’s happening and I’m pretty sure nobody can. So, you might see some urls that regain almost all of their Facebook shares, while others don’t get all of them back. Hey, those are the breaks. You can’t win them all.

Summary – Recover Social Proof Using Social Warfare For WordPress
Changing urls on a site can be a risky proposition. And although many people focus on the SEO impact, social can also take a hit. When changing urls, you can end up losing all social shares, which can be horrible when you’ve spent a lot of time and resources building those shares! But by using Social Warfare, you can regain those lost shares (and keep building them as time goes on).

I recommend trying Social Warfare. I think you’ll dig it. Good luck.

Bitlygeddon Arrives On 6/29/16 – How To Update A Branded Short Domain Name So Your Shared Links Don’t Break

June 14, 2016 By Glenn Gabe 2 Comments

For years I’ve been using a short branded domain name combined with bitly to shorten links I share across social media. For example, I registered glennga.be as the short domain name, and whenever I share a link on Twitter, that’s the domain name in the urls for all shares.

Here’s a quick example that leads to one of my recent blog posts: http://glennga.be/24GmaI3. When clicking that link, users are taken to my post, but the link that gets shared is branded. It’s a popular way for companies to keep their brand in front of a lot of people. Again, many have set this up through bitly, which handles and tracks shortened links.

Now, setting up and using a short branded domain name is often one of those things that simply never gets revisited. You know, you set it up, it works great, and you just assume it will always work. Well, THINK AGAIN. Bitlygeddon is upon us.

Bitlygeddon – Poof, your links will stop working on 6/29/16
We are quickly approaching what I’m calling Bitlygeddon, or the day that many heavy social media users realize that all of their shortened links using a branded domain name stopped working. Poof, they’re dead.

That’s because bitly is moving to a new hosting provider and the IP address you originally used to set up your branded short domain name is changing. Actually, there are two IP addresses now that you can use. And without changing your A record for the branded domain name, your links will not resolve starting on June 29, 2016. Yes, that means you have to change DNS settings, and soon.

So, you might still be sharing links like crazy on Twitter, but those links will not lead anywhere after 6/29 if you don’t make the necessary changes. Embarrassing, right? And then you’ll be scrambling to make the change, only to be confused with how to do it. Therefore, I decided to write this post to 1) remind you that you need to make the change, and 2) explain a little more about how to change your A record.

Note, I made the necessary changes this past weekend. Once I knew where to go and exactly which settings to change, it only took a few minutes. I’ll cover more about this below.

Bitly Documentation
If you’re like many heavy social media users, you set up your short branded domain name a long time ago. That means you might be confused with what you need to change, where those settings are, etc. Well, bitly did send out an email explaining more about the situation, as well as including a link to a blog post with instructions. I didn’t find the instructions to be perfectly clear, but they did get me moving in the right direction. The red underscore is from me, not bitly.

Action Item: So, the first thing you should do is visit the post and thoroughly read the instructions. There are also links to popular hosting providers and how to change the A record for your domain name. But again, you might still leave that post a little confused. Don’t worry, I’ll explain more about what to do.

Where To Make The Change – Your Hosting Provider
I’ve received a few emails about this situation and it seems that a confusing part of the process is understanding where to actually make the change. Many jump to their domain registrar (like GoDaddy or Network Solutions) thinking that’s where the change needs to take place. But when you get there and check the DNS settings for your branded domain, you’ll see this:

That’s right, since you set up your branded short domain name to point to your hosting provider, that’s where you will need to change the A record. So leave your domain name registrar and hop over to your hosting provider.

Once there, you will need to follow instructions specific to your hosting provider for changing the A record. Depending on how tech-savvy you are (or not), now might be a good time to call your hosting provider. They will know all about your domains and how to quickly change an A record. And for those of you that are tech-savvy, then just access your DNS settings for your branded short domain name and update the A record.

Action Item: Don’t jump to your domain name registrar to make the change. The changes need to be made at your hosting provider. Once you find your branded short domain name, you’ll need to update the DNS records, and specifically the A record settings.

An example of what this looks like:
Once I accessed my admin settings at my hosting provider, I needed to update DNS settings for the branded domain. I did that by simply clicking the DNS link in my admin console.

Once in my DNS settings, I found the records that needed to be updated using the two new IP addresses that bitly is using. Remember, there are two new IP addresses, not one. So the first thing to do is to update the records that are present already for www and @. Note, I’m double-checking with bitly about the need to update the A record for @. I’m not sure if that’s necessary, but my original setup did have @ using bitly’s IP address. I’ll update this post once I hear back.

But again, bitly now has two IP addresses for redundancy purposes. For example, if one fails, the second will be used. That wasn’t the case in the past. But it’s important to note, since you need a second A record for each of the settings listed above. In order to do this, you need add another record via your admin console.

For my setup, I simply clicked “Add a record” and then entered the required information plus the second IP address. I completed this for both www and @.

Action Item: Make sure you update the IP addresses for the current A record for www and @, and if needed, make sure you add two A records for each of items I mentioned above (www and @) so you can include the second IP address that bitly provided. You should add both since bitly is using two IP addresses for redundancy purposes. This will ensure that if one fails, the other can be used as a backup (and your shortened links will still work).

Validate Via Bitly
The last item on our checklist is to validate that the changes are working via your advanced settings in bitly. You can access your advanced settings by clicking the hamburger menu in the upper right corner, clicking “settings”, and then “advanced settings”. Once you do, you’ll see a “Re-validate” button in your advanced settings. When you click that link, bitly will check to ensure all is set up properly.

Note, you can also just wait 24 hours for auto-validation, but why not just validate immediately to make sure all is ok? That’s what I recommend. Once you receive confirmation, you’re good to go. You are now safe from Bitlygeddon. :)

Summary – Beware, Bitlygeddon is Coming.
So now you’re up to speed on bitlygeddon, which is arriving on June 29, 2016. The good news is that you still have over two weeks before it arrives and the changes should only take a few minutes to complete. The bad news is that I fear many users will not know about the change and their short domain names will tank starting on 6/29. And if that happens, there won’t be much “sharing” happening with social sharing. Good luck and pass the news on to anyone you know with a short branded domain name using bitly. A few minutes now might save many in frustration down the line.

How Does The Facebook News Feed Work? – Notes From Adam Mosseri’s 2016 F8 Presentation (Head of Product for News Feed)

April 25, 2016 By Glenn Gabe Leave a Comment

Although many people associate algorithms with Google, Facebook also has many algorithms running on a regular basis. And I can’t think of one more important than its News Feed algorithm. That’s what determines the posts and updates you see when you log into your account. With most people having hundreds of “friends”, while also liking many Pages and publishers, the News Feed has gotten very crowded over the past few years. So, Facebook uses an algorithm to determine what shows up, and in which order. And that order can have a serious impact on businesses trying to reach a targeted audience.

For example, if your posts end up ranking highly in the News Feed for many people you are connected with, you can get in front of a lot of eyeballs and end up with a boatload of targeted traffic. That can impact ad revenue, sales, sign-ups, or any number of conversions that apply to your business. If your posts end up ranking low in the News Feed, then you have little chance at gaining those eyeballs.

As you can guess, many wonder how the News Feed algorithm actually works. In other words, what does Facebook take into account when ordering the News Feed? Well, at Facebook’s F8 conference this year, Adam Mosseri, the VP of Product Management for News Feed, presented that very topic. And even better, Facebook recorded a video of his presentation. The presentation was short, but contained some key pieces of information about how the News Feed works. So I decided to take some notes based on Adam’s slides, including the time of each statement.

I highly recommend you watch the video for yourself. There are some great bits of information about how Facebook’s News Feed ticks. Below, you’ll find my notes along with the timecode of each section (so you can jump directly to those parts).

Notes from Adam Mosseri’s presentation about how the News Feed works:

0:50 When The News Feed Algorithm Kicks In
Adam explained that when a publisher first posts a story on Facebook, nothing happens from a News Feed algo perspective. The algo only kicks when someone that is your friend or follows your page logs in and has an opportunity to see your post. That’s when Facebook looks at that story, and all of the other stories that can be shown to those people. Then they are all evaluated by the News Feed algorithm.

1:20 The Number One Input (and it makes sense)
Yes, basic and obvious, but worth noting. The number one input in the News Feed algo is who you friend and which publishers you follow. This is pretty obvious, since that’s the basis for seeing any update on Facebook. For example, if you don’t follow a publisher or have someone as a friend on Facebook, you can’t see their post (or a post they have engaged with) in your News Feed.

2:10 How The News Feed Algorithm Analyzes Updates
Each story (update) is looked at one at a time. The algo tries to determine if you will be interested in that post based on a number of factors/signals. For example, will you like the story, read the story, share it, etc? Those actions are proxies to knowing if a user will be interested in the story.

2:44 Strongest Facebook News Feed Signals/Factors
Facebook then predicts if a user will take these actions based on a number of factors. The top signals include who posted the update, the amount of interactions on a post (i.e. likes and comments), the type of content (photos, video, etc.), and your previous actions with that entity on Facebook (your friend or publisher you follow). For example, how much has a user engaged with that person or publisher?

And the News Feed algorithm definitely takes recency into account (although importance of a post will trump recency). “Recency is a really important signal for relevance, but it’s not the only important signal.” Adam gave a simple example of his cousin that got engaged on a Friday, but he hadn’t been on Facebook since then (a few days). Then this morning his brother-in-law posted his breakfast sandwich. Facebook’s New Feed algorithm would determine that he was more interested in his cousin’s engagement versus the breakfast sandwich. So relevance beats recency in a number of situations.

4:00 Relevancy Score Calculation
A relevancy score is calculated for each story and then the News Feed for a given user is ordered by those relevancy scores. Relevancy scores are specific to each Facebook user. This happens each time someone logs into Facebook (or presumably whenever someone refreshes their News Feed). So, you log in, all of the possible posts that can show in your News Feed are scored. Then they are ordered by relevancy score.

5:00 Facebook Receiving Feedback About News Feed Quality
Facebook has two primary mechanisms for receiving important feedback about the quality of the News Feed. It looks at what people do and then what people say. First, Facebook can see what users are doing. Are they liking and engaging with the content? Are they spending time on the site, and with specific posts? How much value are users gaining from the content in their News Feed?

But, Facebook knows there are certain types of posts where engagement might not happen. For example, a post about someone’s dog that passed away. A person might not engage with that post, but it’s still important to them. That’s where Adam brought up the Feed Quality Program, which has two components.

The first is the Feed Quality Panel, which includes many people that organize their own stories based on interest. Then Facebook can compare their order to how the News Feed would have picked the order. For those heavily involved in SEO, this is very similar to Google’s Quality Raters.

The second component includes online surveys that happen on Facebook every day (for ordinary users). There are tens of thousands of surveys per day asking users how interested they are in a specific story in the News Feed. This happens in over thirty languages, and all around the world geographically. Then Facebook can compare how interested they were to how interested the News Feed algo thought they would be (as a quality measure).

6:30 News Feed Controls For Users
Facebook knows they always don’t get it right… which is why Facebook introduced controls for users. Adam explained the various controls Facebook has created for users (so they can tailor they own News Feeds). For example, he explained the importance of following and friending (and that it’s very clear how they work). Second, Adam explained that unfollowing is important too. By doing so, your News Feed experience “will get more interesting”. You can also hide any post in the News Feed, and Facebook will try and show you less of that type of post in the future. Again, making your News Feed experience more interesting. Last, he mentioned “see first” (which I love by the way). Using “see first”, you can select people or publishers that you find the most interesting (and who you want to show up at the top of your News Feed each time).

Adam explained these controls can help “correct” Facebook and make the News Feed more relevant over time. I thought that was a great statement. Hey, anyone in SEO can tell you that algos aren’t perfect. :)

7:30 What This Means For Publishers
Adam ended his presentation with some tips for publishers. First, he said to create compelling headlines. He made sure to say that he did not mean click bait headlines… He said to give people a real sense of the content behind the headline. For example, be clear and honest (but still compelling). He explained Facebook knows that “people really enjoy this type of content and that Facebook does what it can to make sure it does well in the system.”

Second, he said to avoid overly promotional content. Facebook knows people don’t like getting bombarded with overly promotional content, so try not to do that. Your audience might get less interested in your content over time. Facebook has brought this up before, as heavy promotion can turn off users.

Third, and most important according to Adam, he explained to experiment and try new things. “What’s best for your audience is probably not what’s best for a different publisher’s audience.” He said to experiment with long-form content, short-form content, video, images, try different tones, etc. The point is to see how those changes work for your specific audience, which leads to Adam’s final tip about publisher tools — analysis.

In order to analyze how well your efforts are working, Facebook provides a set of publisher tools that can help you understand what’s resonating with your audience. For example, analyze posts to view engagement, reach, and more.

8:30 Adam Highlights Audience Optimization Tool (Part of publisher tools.)
After running through his tips, Adam called out Facebook’s Audience Optimization Tool as a great way to help tailor your posts to specific segments of your audience. You can tell Facebook what your specific update is about and then Facebook will use that information when considering how interesting the post will be for specific followers. In other words, Facebook will try and match the post up with people that have already shown an interest in that specific topic.

And you can use Audience Restrictions to do the opposite. You can tell Facebook who you don’t think will be interested in the content. By using both pieces of functionality that are part of audience optimization, you can help Facebook focus your update on who will actually be interested in the content.

And last, you can analyze insights based on using the Audience Optimization tool to see what’s working and what’s not. And then based on the performance, you can experiment with refining your targeting to make sure you are driving the most engagement from your posts.

Summary – News Feed Information Directly From The Source
I love when people directly from Google or Facebook explain how their algorithms work. Adam’s video, although short, provided some interesting information directly from the person leading product for Facebook’s News Feed. Again, I recommend watching the video, reading through my notes, and then mapping out a plan of attack for your own efforts on Facebook. And if you have any questions or comments, feel free to provide them below!

Meet The Suggested User List in Google Plus – And How I Jumped From 4K to 80K Followers in Just 4 Months

September 4, 2013 By Glenn Gabe 11 Comments

I’m a big fan of Google+, and have been from the start. I joined the first week it launched, and have been extremely active there ever since. Since joining, I have loved the engagement, the people, the smart conversations, the functionality, etc. In addition, I have seen the impact it can have on exposure, SEO, traffic, and credibility.

And like many others who believe in Google+, I have defended it many times. But, I haven’t defended it based on Google bias. Instead, I base my opinion and recommendations on data, and my knowledge of how Google works. To me, if you aren’t using Google+, and you are interested in boosting your social and SEO efforts, then you are missing a huge opportunity.

Growing My Presence on Google+ and Increasing Connections
Similar to what you need to do with any social network, you first need to build a following. I’ve always believed the best way to do that is to add value and engage users. And that’s what I tried to do on Google+ from the start. And over time, I’ve met some incredible people, engaged in some great conversations, while also providing a steady stream of valuable, curated updates. Those updates included articles, posts, and insights across a range of digital marketing topics like SEO, SEM, Social Media Marketing, Mobile, Web Analytics, etc.

And that approach has definitely worked for me. I grew my following to about 4K people as of April, 2013. And no, I really didn’t care about the number of followers. I cared much more about the quality of people that had me in circles. I found there were real people on the other end of my updates, with their own experiences, and their own points of view. I found myself going to Twitter first, but Google+ was always a close second. It became a natural part of my social media process.

Boom – Hockey Stick Growth
In early April, everything was chugging along as usual on Google+. I was getting approximately 10-15 followers per day, and that was great. But then April 12th came along, and I saw first-hand what hockey-stick growth looks like. My followers began to jump, and jump fast.

I began seeing an increase of 400-600 followers per day. Yes, you read that correctly. And on some days, I saw over 1000 new followers. Since April 12th, I have skyrocketed from 4K followers to over 80K. You can see the hockey stick growth below in a chart from CircleCount.

The Power of the Suggested User List
As you can imagine, I was heavily interested in finding out what was going on. Was it my latest updates? Was it my column on Search Engine Watch, combined with my writing elsewhere? Were the new followers real people? I had many questions. So, I started contacting people that had recently circled me asking how they found me. I figured they could shed some light on why so many people started following since April 12th.

And supporting one of the things I love about Google+ (that there are real people behind the profiles), my new connections got back to me pretty quickly. The first response basically answered my question: “I saw you on a suggested user list for Technology”. Then the second came in: “You were on a list suggested by Google”.

Ah, now I got it. I was added to a suggested user list… now the growth made sense.

OK, But Why Was I Added To The SUL?
As I said earlier, I have been continually sharing high quality, curated content on Google Plus (and other social networks). I determined that my followers would benefit from the specific articles or posts that I read and marked as important. That could be breaking news, tutorials, reviews of technology, or evergreen digital marketing content. Never did I use a tool to automate that process. I simply always tried to keep my connections up to speed on what’s breaking in SEO, SEM, Social, Mobile, Technology, etc.

And over time, Google+ algorithmically determined that the posts I was publishing were high quality, extremely relevant, drove engagement, etc. At some point, I must have passed a threshold to be added to a suggested user list. No magic. No gaming. Just hard work and time.

The Growth of Google+, Seen First-Hand
There has been a lot of talk about Google+ not growing, and that it’s a ghost town. I never believed that, just based on the people I saw there every day. And when I was added to the suggested user list, I saw first-hand how many people were signing up. You see, suggested user lists are presented when you first sign up. Sure, you can see them any time, but they are prominently showcased when you sign up for Google+. And if Google+ wasn’t growing, then I wouldn’t have seen a jump to 80K that fast…

What I’ve Changed Since The Jump
Absolutely nothing. :) Seriously, why in the world would I change anything now? I keep doing what I’ve been doing, which is what my overall social strategy has been from the start. Share valuable posts, engage users, and help others. And I’ll keep doing that, even if Google+ removes me from the SUL. It’s how my brain functions, which is also why I do so much blogging. I love what I do, I love helping other people, and blogging and social media have been a natural fit.

The Impact of Google+ Growth:
OK, I know you’re wondering what the impact has been. Like everything else in digital marketing, it’s important to look at the impact through a few different lenses. I’ll touch on each one below.

Engagement and Connections
I have definitely seen an uptick in engagement since the surge began. That includes people reaching out to me directly, in addition to engagement via posts on Google+. It’s not 20X engagement, but I’m confident I’m getting in front of more targeted people on a regular basis. And that’s a good thing social media-wise, and SEO-wise. More about SEO soon.

Here is an example of a Google Plus Ripple for one of my recent blog posts:

Clicks From Google+
Based on the total number of updates I share via Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc., I rarely end up sharing my own links. My ratio of sharing non-G-Squared posts versus my own content is easily 100 to 1 (if not greater). I don’t participate in social media to continually shove my own work in front of others. I share important posts from around the web that relate to digital marketing. Sure, if I write a post or need to reference one of my own articles, I will. But that’s not what I do on a regular basis.

In addition, I use bitly pro to have a custom url shortener, which also enables me to track each url. Using bitly pro, I can see a number of metrics for each url shortened, including total clicks from my shortened link, total clicks from all bitly links for that content, which referrers drove the most clicks on my link, geographic data, etc. Note, I obviously can’t see impressions, so this is purely click data.

What I’ve seen recently is a jump in the percentage of clicks from Google+. Now, I’m not Robert Scoble seeing hundreds or thousands of clicks per url. But, I have seen the percentage climb for G+. Again, it’s just another signal that more people are seeing my updates and engaging with the content.

For example, over the past 30 days, Google+ accounts for 26% of all clicks on my shortened urls. Twitter is 24%, Facebook 7%, and “Other” accounts for 35%. “Other” includes direct traffic, email, air clients, IM, etc. So, Twitter is actually greater than 24%, based on third party apps. But, Google Plus is not far behind, accounting for over one quarter of all links I share.

Authorship and AuthorRank
There’s no doubt that authorship markup has a big impact in the SERPs. The credibility that author details brings can impact click-through rate for sure. But in addition to the increased real estate, the pure number of people following me can have an impact. When users search for answers and solutions, view a search listing from my blog or column with author details, and see 80K+ people have circled me, that can mean a lot towards increased click-through rate.

And from an AuthorRank perspective (which doesn’t impact rankings just yet), the more people that have me in circles could potentially impact my AuthorRank score. And that score can eventually impact rankings, and subsequent traffic. Actually, AuthorRank could be impacting in-depth articles already… So, the more weight my Google+ profile has, the more it could potentially impact AuthorRank (and natural search rankings). Food for thought. Note, I cover more about authorship and author stats soon.

SEO
With Search Plus Your World (SPYW), Google could increase the rankings of content published by people you are connected with on Google+. That means my content could surface more often (and higher) for the 80K+ people that are following me. And that includes both the urls I share from across the web, and the specific Google+ updates I publish. For example, having plus.google.com/{some-update-here} rank highly in the SERPs for people that are connected with me on Google Plus.

Here’s a quick example. I had some connections of mine perform various searches while logged in. Here is a screenshot of a Google plus update ranking based on a search for the phantom update. And this plus update does not rank highly when my connection is logged out.

Author Stats in Google Webmaster Tools
OK, I know after reading that last paragraph about Search Plus Your World, you’re wondering how you can actually see the impact of SPYW via reporting. For example, is there a way to see how many of your posts show up in the personalized listings? Google Analytics won’t show you that data, although that would be a great addition. But, there is a roundabout way to see which plus updates are showing up. And it’s buried in Google Webmaster Tools in a report titled “Author Stats”. It can be found under the “Labs” link in the left-side navigation.

While researching this post, I dug into my latest stats (which shows statistics for pages which are tied to me as an author). These are pages that show up in the SERPs with author details (based on rel=author markup). For me, there are many posts showing up from my Search Engine Watch column, Search Engine Journal Column, and my own blog posts from The Internet Marketing Driver.

But there are other posts listed there… And as you can guess, they are Google Plus updates. And those plus updates primarily show for people that are connected to me on Google+ (i.e. people that are seeing my plus updates based on Search Plus Your World when they search for answers).

Over the past 90 days, plus posts account for 15% of the pages showing author details (based on the author stats reporting in Google Webmaster Tools). That’s a telling story when it comes to Search Plus Your World. Most of those impressions do not occur for my connections when the personalized results are turned off (or for people that aren’t connected with me on Google+). So, that’s a clear indicator of the power of SPYW and SEO. And the more people I’m connected with, the more those plus posts show up in the SERPs.

Google Plus Updates Showing in Author Stats Reporting in Google Webmaster Tools:

And before you go crazy and start screaming that Google is driving more people to its own property (Google+), SPYW also impacts my other updates on Google+, which lead to external websites. It’s just harder to understand how much they jump up in the SERPs based on Search Plus Your World (since it’s hard to uncover those stats via reporting tools). The plus posts are easier to isolate, since I can view them in the author stats reporting in webmaster tools.

My Google+ Path Continues
So there you have it. My story about surging from 4K to 80K followers on Google+ in four months. Again, employing the right social strategy over the long-term can lead to great things. You just need to fight through the black hole of social and keep providing value. Most won’t make it through the black hole, but those that do could see a powerful impact.

My advice to anyone on the fence with Google+ is to start now. The benefit can be felt on several levels, including increased connections, engagement, exposure, traffic, SEO, and credibility. But you won’t see any of those benefits if you don’t get started.

I think I can sum up the core point of my post in the following way (and this applies to any social network). Provide valuable updates, engage users, add value, and help others. It’s a recipe for hockey stick growth. :)