How Social Media Indirectly Benefits SEO

What Are “Social Signals” in SEO?

Social signals refer to engagement metrics from social media platforms – for example, the number of followers a profile has, as well as how much engagement (likes, shares, comments, retweets, etc.) content receives on social networks. These metrics indicate content popularity on social platforms. SEO professionals have long debated whether such social media popularity translates into better search engine rankings. In other words, does having thousands of followers or a post with viral-level shares help your website rank higher on Google or Bing? In this report, we examine the relationship between social media metrics and SEO performance as of 2025, across major search engines.

Do Social Signals Directly Influence Search Rankings?

Google’s Stance: “Social Metrics Are Not Ranking Factors”

Google has consistently maintained that it does not use social media follower counts or engagement metrics as direct ranking signals in its search algorithm. Google’s Search Liaison Danny Sullivan confirmed as recently as late 2023 that the number of followers on a social profile is not a factor for search rankings. Similarly, Google Search Advocate John Mueller and others have repeatedly stated that social signals are not used by Google’s ranking algorithms. In one example, Mueller joked in response to a wildly popular tweet that “Sorry, we don’t use likes as a ranking factor”.

This stance isn’t new. Google representatives have been saying this for years. Back in 2014, then-head of webspam Matt Cutts explained that Google crawls Facebook and Twitter pages like any other web pages, but Google’s algorithm does not give special weight to metrics like Facebook likes or Twitter follower counts. He even cautioned marketers not to confuse correlation with causation when it comes to social engagement and SEO. In other words, just because top-ranking pages often have lots of social shares doesn’t mean the shares caused those rankings. The takeaway is that having a large social media following or many likes on a post does not directly boost your Google search rankings.

It’s worth noting that Google’s search team acknowledges social media’s value in other ways. High-quality content naturally tends to get shared and talked about, which can generate “organic buzz” and indirectly build your site’s reputation.  Social media profiles also appear in search results (for example, your Twitter profile can rank for your brand name), and Google’s Quality Rater Guidelines mention social media when assessing a brand’s credibility. A strong positive social media presence can contribute to your E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) – a concept Google uses in evaluating content quality. However, these are indirect or qualitative influences. The core ranking algorithm in 2025 still does not include a site’s social follower count, likes, or shares as direct ranking inputs.

Bing’s Approach: Social Signals Do Influence Rankings

Bing, in contrast to Google, has openly stated that it does consider social signals in its ranking algorithm. Microsoft’s search engine has for years been more transparent about using social media popularity as a ranking factor. Pages that generate a lot of likes, shares, and other social engagements are better positioned to rank highly on Bing. In Bing’s own webmaster documentation and interviews, officials have indicated that content with strong social engagement may get a ranking boost because Bing interprets those social signals as a sign of quality or popularity.

This means that if a piece of content is going viral on social media, Bing is more likely to take that into account when ordering search results (more so than Google would). Even back in the early 2010s, Bing’s representatives noted that social media influence (for example, a prominent Twitter user tweeting a link) could positively impact how Bing ranks that content. By 2025, social media popularity and sharing remain part of Bing’s ranking formula.  Meanwhile, Yahoo Search has been powered by Bing for years, so it follows the same approach – Yahoo’s search results will reflect Bing’s algorithm, including any weight given to social signals.

To summarize the difference:

Key point: Google’s stance in 2025 remains unchanged – social media metrics are not part of Google’s ranking algorithm, despite Google now displaying follower counts in some search results. (Google added visible follower counts for certain social profiles in results in 2023, which led to confusion; Google clarified that this is simply displayed information, not a signal used for ranking.) On the other hand, Bing continues to use social engagement as one of its many ranking signals, so a strong social media performance of your content can contribute to better Bing rankings.

Correlation vs. Causation: Social Signals and High Rankings

Over the years, SEO studies have often observed a high correlation between top-ranking pages and strong social media metrics. For instance, pages that rank #1 on Google often have thousands of shares on Facebook or Twitter. However, as Google’s Matt Cutts and other experts emphasize, correlation does not equal causation.  Popular pages tend to get many social shares and tend to earn many backlinks; it’s the backlinks, content quality, and other factors that directly boost the rankings, not the act of sharing itself.

Multiple experiments and case studies back this up. In one case, Ahrefs highlighted an article that received a large number of Twitter shares and engagement, yet the article “never ranked well in Google” despite the social buzz.  This and similar examples suggest that even viral social media success doesn’t guarantee any improvement in organic search position. From Google’s perspective, a burst of social activity alone isn’t a trustworthy signal – it could be manipulated or could be fleeting trendiness. Google needs more enduring and robust signals (like authoritative backlinks or satisfying user intent) to rank a page highly.

Academic and industry research has consistently found that social signals are at best indirectly related to SEO success. A large-scale study by cognitiveSEO concluded that while there is a strong correlation between overall social activity and higher search rankings, each social network’s impact varies and no direct causal link is proven. In fact, Google has explained that it deliberately doesn’t use signals like Facebook likes or Twitter followers in rankings because those can be easily gamed – one can purchase fake followers or orchestrate artificial engagement.  Social platforms themselves struggle to weed out fake accounts and spam engagement, so Google is reluctant to rely on those metrics.

The consensus among SEO experts in 2025 is that social media success can accompany SEO success, but it does not directly cause it. If you see a page that ranks #1 and also has tons of social shares, it’s likely because that page is excellent and newsworthy – which leads to both high shares and many backlinks/mentions – rather than because the shares themselves boosted the ranking. Always remember that correlation (even strong correlation) between social signals and rankings is not proof that social metrics are a Google ranking factor. As Google’s own Gary Illyes quipped, “It’s not because [search engines] will rank you better – that’s BS – but because you market your content”.  In other words, use social media to market and expose your content (which can lead to real SEO benefits), but don’t expect the likes or retweets alone to drive up your Google rankings.

How Social Media Indirectly Benefits SEO

While social metrics don’t directly feed the ranking algorithms on Google (and only modestly on Bing), there are multiple indirect ways that a strong social media presence can improve your overall SEO performance:

• Increased Content Discovery and Indexing: Active sharing of your content on social platforms can lead to more people seeing it. This increases the chance that bloggers, journalists, or webmasters will discover your content and link to it from their own sites, which is a powerful ranking factor. In this way, social media acts as a content distribution channel that can ultimately earn you backlinks. For example, the SEO team at Ahrefs notes that their strong social following often means new content gets picked up in industry news sites and blogs, resulting in backlinks without extra effort.  Those backlinks, in turn, boost Google rankings. Social sharing can also help new pages get noticed by search engine crawlers faster (if your content is widely shared on public platforms, Google’s crawlers may encounter it sooner).

• Brand Awareness, Queries, and Trust Signals: Building a large, engaged audience on social media increases your brand recognition. Users who see your brand frequently may start searching for your brand or domain directly on Google – an increase in branded search queries can be a positive sign of trust and popularity. Moreover, a well-regarded brand with an active community is likely to be viewed as more authoritative. Google’s Quality Raters are instructed to research a website’s reputation, and social media presence is one avenue to gauge reputation and authority.  Prominent SEO experts have suggested that if “people all over the web are talking about your brand (in a good way), then Google may consider you an authority and want to rank you higher”.  In short, a strong social reputation builds your site’s E-E-A-T, which indirectly feeds into better search performance over time.

• Higher Engagement = Better On-Site Performance: Social traffic itself doesn’t give a ranking boost (Google doesn’t reward getting clicks from Facebook or Twitter). In fact, Google has explicitly said clicks from social media or ads have “no effect on SEO”.  However, the visitors you earn through social media can still help your SEO in secondary ways. For instance, if your social media efforts drive lots of relevant visitors to your site, those visitors might engage with your content, reduce your bounce rates, or generate conversions. They might also share your content further or remember your brand later. All of these outcomes strengthen your site’s performance and could lead to metrics that search engines do care about (like positive reviews, more branded searches, or even user behavior signals). At minimum, diversifying your traffic sources is good for business – not everything needs to have a direct SEO effect to be valuable.

• Content that Trends on Social = More Organic Visibility: If your content goes viral on social media, there can be spillover benefits on search platforms beyond the traditional rankings. Notably, Google Discover, the personalized content feed on Android and iOS, often surfaces web content that has trended or gained popularity on social networks.  Strong social signals (lots of shares/engagement in a short time) can translate into a spike of visibility on Discover or in Google News, driving a surge of organic traffic to your site.  Additionally, social media trending topics can sometimes influence what content search engines deem “fresh” or relevant to show for certain queries. This doesn’t mean your Twitter likes become a Google ranking factor, but rather that social buzz can amplify your content’s reach, which complements your SEO.

• Occupying More Search Real Estate: Lastly, having active social profiles can help you dominate the search results page for branded searches. Your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Instagram pages will often rank on the first page for your company or personal name. This doesn’t raise your main website’s rank, but it’s an SEO benefit in the sense of online presence – it pushes negative or unrelated results down and ensures that searchers find you on multiple channels. It also adds credibility when a user sees that your brand has a robust social following right from the Google results. (Google even displays the follower count for certain profiles directly in the snippet, though again this is just for user information and not a ranking factor.)

Recent Updates and 2025 Outlook on Social Signals & SEO

In the past few years leading up to 2025, there have been no major algorithm changes from Google that incorporate social media metrics as direct ranking factors. Google’s core updates in 2022, 2023, and early 2025 continued to focus on content quality, user experience, and authoritative backlinks, rather than anything to do with tweets or likes. Google officials (like Search Liaison Danny Sullivan and Search Advocate John Mueller) have consistently reiterated that social media performance has no direct bearing on Google Search rankings. The inclusion of social profile follower counts in search result snippets in 2023 was a display change only, not a shift in ranking policy.

On the other hand, Bing’s integration of social signals has remained steady. Bing has not announced any significant increase or decrease in how it uses social engagement, but it maintains that content popular on social media can enjoy better visibility on Bing.  With the rise of AI-driven features (like Bing’s AI chat integrated into search results in 2023), one might speculate whether real-time social trends could play a role in those AI responses. However, as of 2025 the core ranking of Bing’s web results still includes social signals in a traditional way (as one factor among many), and there’s no indication of a major shift there either.

It’s important to note that indirect effects are increasingly recognized. For example, Google’s algorithms continually refine how they evaluate a site’s authority and trustworthiness – and signals of widespread brand discussion or popularity (often driven by social media) could eventually be folded into those evaluations in nuanced ways. Even now, SEO experts emphasize integrating social media into SEO strategy not for an immediate ranking boost, but to create a holistic online presence. Moz’s and SEMrush’s specialists often advise that social media can amplify the reach of your content and accelerate the acquisition of natural links, which ultimately helps SEO. In essence, the best practice in 2025 is to treat social media as a complementary channel to SEO: use it to distribute content, build a community, and drive traffic – all of which can indirectly improve your search performance, even if the algorithms themselves aren’t counting your followers or likes.

Key Takeaways

• Follower counts and likes are not magic ranking boosters. Google does not reward you with higher rankings for having more social media followers or post likes. Bing does factor in social engagement, but it’s just one of many factors, and having social popularity alone won’t guarantee top Bing rankings. Focus on social media for audience building, not as a direct SEO cheat code.

• No direct effect on Google (as of 2025). Google’s algorithm ignores social signals in rankings – a stance confirmed by multiple Google representatives and unchanged in recent years.  Tweets, Facebook shares, etc., are treated like any other web page link (often they’re nofollow links, which pass no PageRank).  There’s no secret social media lever to pull for better Google SEO.

• Correlation, not causation. Pages that perform well on social media often also perform well in search, but the social success is usually a byproduct of great content, not the cause of the search ranking.  High-quality content earns both shares and backlinks; it’s the backlinks and content quality that directly boost SEO. Beware of assuming a viral post will automatically rank – many case studies show that even heavily-shared content can fail to rank without traditional SEO signals backing it up.

• Social media boosts SEO indirectly. An effective social media strategy can amplify your SEO efforts in indirect ways: driving more traffic (which can lead to more engagement and possibly more links), building your brand’s online reputation (which contributes to trust and authority), and increasing chances of your content being referenced elsewhere. As one Shopify digital marketing report put it, Google and other search engines don’t directly count social media performance in their algorithms, but you can use social media to improve your search rankings over the long run.  In short, social is a support mechanism for SEO, not a ranking factor on its own.

• Continue creating share-worthy content. The lack of direct ranking impact doesn’t mean social media should be ignored in SEO planning. On the contrary, content that resonates with audiences will get shared, and those shares can lead to the kind of exposure and link opportunities that search engines do value. Search engines aim to surface content that’s valuable to users – and strong social signals often indicate content people find valuable (even if the algorithms don’t count those signals outright). By integrating your SEO and social media strategies, you can ensure that when you publish high-quality content, it reaches a wide audience, earns engagement, and has the best chance to attract the backlinks, brand recognition, and user satisfaction that ultimately help you rise in the search rankings.

Sources:

Google and Microsoft representatives’ public statements on social signals bloggeroutreach.io searchenginejournal.com

industry research and expert analyses from Search Engine Journal, Ahrefs, and others ahrefs.com blog.quuu.co shopify.com;

SEO case studies examining social share correlation with rankingsahrefs.com

These sources collectively confirm that as of 2025, social media metrics have at most an indirect impact on SEO performance, and successful search optimization still revolves around quality content, relevant keywords, authoritative backlinks, and a strong user experience – with social media acting as a valuable auxiliary channel to support those primary SEO factors.

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