Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz takes us through what in his opinion is the future of SEO. What I found most interesting in his video blog is the effect that social media will have on SEO. Will Facebook Fan pages, Twitter followers and social media tools alike have an influence on SEO?

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – The Future of SEO from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Two days ago Google released some exciting new search add-ons and changes in their algorithm. The search add-ons are explained nicely in the below video, so you can watch the video in your own time to find out more information. Today though, I want to focus on the algorithm update as I feel it’s much more important from a SEO stand point.

Google is incorporating user reviews and ratings into google.com’s search results, it cannot be seen in google.co.za just yet but I have no doubt it’s on its way. There are two sides to the coin here.

1) If analysing it as a single algorithm, it is not the brightest idea the Google engineers have come up with because it can be easily manipulated by companies. There are rumours going around the SEO circles that companies are even paying people to write good reviews about their products and give them good ratings as well. So the reviews may not always be trusted.

2) On the flip side it is Google embracing Web2.0 technology and not relying anymore on their incoming link algorithm. This move by Google also strengthens my belief that Google’s, Eric Schmidt must be taken seriously when he hints they are looking at introducing branding in their algorithm. One must look at this new algorithm as one small piece of Google’s massive puzzle.

So lets try and make these two side of the coins gel and become one, helping us understand why Google released such an algorithm…

There is no doubt that Google will still use their incoming link and on-site optimisation algorithms (together with their analytical analysis of traffic within a website plus the amount of rss subscribers a website has). With this new addition to their algorithms they now have a more refined algorithm. I’m convinced (I have no proof yet) that they will only insert reviews and ratings in their search results with websites that already have a good ranking score with their other algorithms. I very much doubt that they will insert every rating and review from every e-commerce/blog website indexed in the world wide web…

The next two questions we must be asking regarding Web2.0 algorithms are:

1) How soon will Google be able to tap into Twitter profiles and start indexing tweets, and placing an authorative ranking on Twitter profiles?

As you can see in the below image Google have begun a primitive index on Twitter updates. Will this evolve into something more spectacular?

2) Will Google be able to index Facebook pages and use the size of their fan base as part of their algorithm?

I question this theory in my previous post.

This past week I’ve been researching and testing Facebook pages and their influence on SEO. Personally I never saw the value of having a Facebook page for WebGrowth as my focus is SEO and not social media.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, has been quoted that Google will be taking into account company branding in their algorithm.

The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

“Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”

“Brand affinity is clearly hard wired,” he said. “It is so fundamental to human existence that it’s not going away. It must have a genetic component.”

So surely a company with a high fan base within Facebook can be regarded as a company with a good brand and following? It is an interesting theory which I will be testing over the next several months.

For the record, I searched for “webgrowth facebook” within Google.com yesterday (13 May 2009). WebGrowth’s Facebook page was ranked at #12 (I checked Google’s cache and the page only had 4 fans), today I did a search and it is ranked #9 (the page fan base has increased to 9).

Updated: 27 June 2009

WebGrowth’s Facebook page is ranked #5 with 11 Fans.

The link back to WebGrowth from the Facebook page is a nofollow so in theory no link juice should be passed onto WebGrowth’s main website. This does not mean Google does not follow the link though, the guys at  SEOmoz also have their own theory on this.

This is my opinion but I reckon Google is evolving their algorithm into measuring brands and ranking accordingly, so their algorithm is so complex that it can evaluate if a nofollow link is worth following. So a page from Facebook with a high fan base will get the nod from Google and follow the link back to the company’s website.

As businesses feel the pinch on marketing budgets due to our economic environment we (as businesses) need to start thinking out the box to attract new customers. Going social on Facebook is a perfect way for any newbie to online marketing. It’s quick, easy and results can be tracked almost immediately.

This video will give you a quick introduction as to how to create a Facebook page for your business.