A question of trust: Search engine traffic vs Social Media Traffic - GoFuckYourself.com

$5 submissions · 02-17-2010, 06:52 AM

Question:
Putting aside the question of RELEVANCE momentarily, which do you trust more--search engine results based on your query or a site that appears in your friend feed or social media feed?

This question comes to mind because of Facebook's continued EXPANSION of media sharing on the Internet and the fact that SOCIAL TRAFFIC may eclipse search traffic (on an absolute basis) soon:

Quote:

For many sites on the Web, social traffic coming through Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace is beginning to rival, and in some cases overtake, search traffic as the single biggest source of traffic. This traffic comes from shared links, photos, and videos. By its own numbers, 5 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every week.

What isn?t easily appreciated is the extent to which such social sharing is tied to different identity and authentication platforms across the Web. If you can log into a site easily using your Facebook or Twitter account, it is easier to broadcast links from that site to your friends.

Quote:

Distribution of shared items
Facebook: 44%
Twitter: 29%
Yahoo:18%
MySpace:9%

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/16/fac...ocial-sharing/

What is the impact?
A previous study notes that people BUY more often based on referrals/recommendations of people they know or respect. Is it possible that this shared NETWORK OF TRUST (of course, there's layers to this) might eclipse the trust assigned to a search result?

$5 submissions · 02-17-2010, 11:45 AM

Google's Matt Cutts, in many of his talks, refers to trust as one of the key concerns google has for SERPs. It appears that trust is now moving from the index to how actual crowds behave. For example, check this Yahoo patent http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090249451

02-17-2010, 11:45 AM	#2
$5 submissions I help you SUCCEED Industry Role: Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: The Pearl of the Orient Seas Posts: 32,195	Google's Matt Cutts, in many of his talks, refers to trust as one of the key concerns google has for SERPs. It appears that trust is now moving from the index to how actual crowds behave. For example, check this Yahoo patent http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090249451 __________________ Need a NON-ADULT income stream? We build your YOUTUBE CHANNEL for only $20 per video! For Hire: $3/hour or $400 per month Marketing Specialist Virtual Assistants