Facebook makes an algorithm change; Google still uses PageRank; Twitter enhances video to round out our audience development news
We begin our audience development news with a look at the new changes coming to Facebook’s algorithm. MeetEdgar is reporting, “One of Facebook’s most recent algorithm changes relates to universal signals. That means it has to do with your Page and what it posts – specifically, your authenticity.”
“Facebook has used the habits of Pages that regularly share inauthentic updates to build a model that can automatically identify and predict whether or not other Pages’ updates are authentic.”
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“The way they see it, Pages that frequently do things such as asking for likes or sharing updates that people hide aren’t exactly great examples of the authenticity users care about. The more you have in common with those Pages’ tactics, the less likely that you’re authentic, either.”
In addition to authenticity, Facebook’s new algorithm change tracks real-time changes more closely. “The second update they’ve just made is to how information is processed in real time – specifically, information related to an update’s subject and its engagement.”
The article continues by saying Facebook may place a status update higher in the News Feed if related to a popular topic on Facebook at the time, or if it’s getting a lot of engagement.
Next, let’s look at Twitter, which is focusing more on video content now. Mashable reports, “Twitter has created a “top videos for you” section that shows videos that it believes the user may enjoy. The videos play automatically, without sound, as you hover over them. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed it is a test.”
“The change is a far cry from Twitter’s origins in a chronological feed limited to 140-character, text-only tweets. The move pushes the platform in a direction that makes the app more personalized and visual — and intriguingly more like Facebook.”
The article continues by discussing the increases that Twitter has been experiencing in terms of active users, and this new foray into video may help add to it. “Twitter’s daily active users increased 11 percent year over year over the last year, compared to 7 percent over the last quarter. Tweet impressions received double-digit growth in engagement over the year.”
Finally, we take a look at search and some info on Google’s PageRank. Search Engine Roundtable reports, “Several months ago, Gary Illyes from Google said Google still uses PageRank and this morning, for some reason, Gary felt the need to state that message again on Twitter. He said, “DYK that after 18 years we’re still using PageRank (and 100s of other signals) in ranking?””
“We know Google killed PageRank off from the Google Toolbar almost a year ago. But that does not mean Google doesn’t use PageRank internally – they said they do and Gary repeated it today.”
Keep practicing great white hat SEO and dealing with PageRank should not be an issue for your website.
