Which is best for SEO? Facebook or Twitter?

How well Google can index Facebook or Twitter is dependent upon how much data is made available to it from these private networks and how full an indexing they could handle without them grinding to a halt.  One would think that Google needs to index the whole of the internet if their service is to remain valid, but Facebook and Twitter are basically private networks so can only be comprehensively indexed if the owners allow it.

Of course, there will always be private networks on the Internet, but if those parts of the Internet are as big as Facebook and Twitter, then search engines will start to have problems of validity, as Social Media grows, if they are unable to represent them properly to their search users.  Real time indexing of these Social Media services is no longer done by Google, much to the disappointment of many, but the users of both Facebook and Twitter are indexed and their SERP results will be important to those interested in SEO.

So, the practical question at hand is …… Which is better for SEO, Facebook or Twitter?  If a person or a firm has only enough time to concentrate on one of the platforms from an SEO point of view, which one should be chosen?  Here is a practical way that I used to answer this question, it may have some flaws, but I believe it gives a good indication to the answer.  So, this is what I did……..

On Google I used this search…

 “is on Facebook” site:www.facebook.com/

This search brings up all the users on Facebook that are currently indexed by Google. The number of results found was 690,000,000 which corresponds well to Wikipedia’s estimation of the number of users on Facebook.  The top five results were … The British Monarchy, Sarah Palin, Facebook itself, George W Bush and the Dali Lama.  A motley crew, but those I made the contenders for Facebook (It’ll all make sense soon, be patient).  I kept that browser window open.

In another browser window I put this search into Google

“on Twitter” site:https://twitter.com/

This search brings up all the users on Twitter that are currently indexed by Google. The number of people on Twitter is not really agreed upon, but a general estimate is 500 million.  The number of results this search found was 1,460,000,000.  The difference in the numbers, I would consider, is due to a less definitive search and a preponderance of spam bot Twitter accounts.  The top five Twitter users on my search were … Tiger Woods, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Stephen Fry and Justin Beiber.  These I made the contenders for Twitter.

Now to find out which is better for SEO Facebook or Twitter?  I took the top contender from Facebook, the British Monarchy, and pitted it against Tiger Woods for Twitter. Opened Google in a new browser window and entered this search…….

"Tiger Woods (TigerWoods) on Twitter" | "The British Monarchy Facebook"

This search was designed to find the Tiger Woods Twitter account and the British Monarchy Facebook page.  The one that is ranked highest in the SERP is of course the SEO Winner!

and the winner was ………. The British Monarchy!

I repeated the process with the losing contender facing off with the next contender down on the winning Social Media’s side. So the next search was ………

"Tiger Woods (TigerWoods) on Twitter " | "Sarah Palin Facebook"

and the winner was ………. Sarah Palin!

Tiger Woods had to face one Facebook Contender after another …. Facebook itself, George W Bush, the Dalai Lama and was beaten by all of them!  He continued squaring up to Facebook contenders until he reached search page 10 of the Facebook users, and had a face off against ….. Lee Minho?!?

"Tiger Woods (TigerWoods) on Twitter " | "Lee Minho Facebook"

and the winner was (at last) Tiger Woods!

The conclusion has to be that if Lee Minho only used Facebook and Tiger Woods only used Twitter and they both had no other internet presence. Then, as a Google user, it would seem that Lee Minho was more famous than Tiger Woods!!!

So that’s it then……

Which is better for SEO, Facebook or Twitter?

No contest…….

Facebook is better than Twitter for SEO.

By SEO STEER