The huge (actually the major) part of Google algorithm is a mystery. On the other hand, very often page behavior in Google SERPs cannot be explained with any known factors Google make public.
Those both factors account for a great number of (unconfirmed) theories and elaborations that might be true and are fun to discuss. One such theory is shared below.
I once was asked if links in Google docs (either published or not) can be crawled and taken into account. I did a quick search on Google to see different opinions on this and stumbled across a forum thread sharing people’s experiences on the affect from backlinks posted in Gmail.
In short: People report seeing Gmail links to be used for discovery. The supporting arguments are as follows:
- Messages in Gmail email are automatically read: the proof is related Google ads shown for each message;
- With Google owning such a huge database of Internet private conversations, it would be strange if it didn’t take advantage of it in some way or another.
The theory is:
- Links sent in messages via Gmail may be viewed as some different type of a vote (not a regular “link value” but, say “one email link”);
- Marking a message containing a link as spam or (on the contrary) clicking the link within the message may also be taken into account as some sort of a signal.
Have you ever noticed links in Gmail influence your page performance? Please share your thoughts!
I know a experiment:
He sent address of page which existed in the google’s index and he didn’t get the page that appeared in the index.
Therefore, I don’t think it is true.
nice thought, but i don’t see Google being that evil. Stick to docs and other formats that are visible on the open web. if the web crawler can get to it in any way, then consider it for their algorithm.
- jason nadaf
“Someone recently suggested that a link sent to a Gmail account equals one link on one page. Also not true in any way.” — Matt Cutts, November 14, 2006.
Take that for what it’s worth.
Makes sense that they would want to do this since:
- google uses links to find out what people ‘vote’ for as the best page for a query
- most people dont link, the “linkerati” is only a small minority of web users
- most people do however forward emails when they find a link they like / find funny / think is useful
- if they COULD find out which links are being forwarded in emails, i think search engines would love to use that data
- google CAN use this data, as you’ve shown above
- hmmmm
OK so we can’t prove they do use it. And matt cutts saying its not true in any way that “one email link = one link on a page” is typically evasive. He didn’t choose to mythbust “gmail links are used in SOME way in search algos” did he? I would speculate that given the already enormous email spam problems out there, Google would be v reluctant to admit anything of the sort.
So the question for me is, if they CAN, why wouldn’t they? Come up with a good reason why not and I’ll be convinced!
Very interesting.
I’ll be trying out a few tests to see if this effects our site
Thanks for the article
This is certainly worth investigating further. I believe that privacy is certainly not one of google’s biggest concerns.
Last night a friend told me that every employee in their company was told to search for their website for a specific term and then to click thru for their company website because this would influence search engine ranking – and it seems to be working. Their rankings have shot up. Therefore, that fact that Google might use links in email would not be to much of a surprise.
That’s very interesting. It is worth taking the time & researching/testing to find out if it works.
I believe this is correct I have noticed too on my analyctics that Google has gave my site hits directly from gmail as well. I believe Google uses every form they can to their advantage when considering rank placement.
Once I sent a demo site address to my friend using gmail and I’m sure I never published that link anywhere. But I was shocked to find that link has been indexed in Google search result.
Very interesting.
I’ll be trying out a few tests to see if this effects our site
The one thing I encounter alot are people clicking links in their Gmail to get to the site, you can see it all over Analytics. However, while this does lead to increased traffic (As an email marketing campaign should), it doesn’t seem to be making a big impact on new links. Of course will keep eyes open ;)
Derek
Well i believe, that Google would not be giving links from any private data of user. If that was the case we might have seen thousands of links for a single website which is being marketed via Email Signatures. Or in footer message of a mail sent on one Gmail Address to another or even on third party Email Services.
Nice Idea :)
But I don’t think that Google can apply a such algorithm without users authority !
It would be may be a secret algorightm :)
I really discovered backlinks from Google account details. You can target your favoured links when editing you Google profile.
Ann, I tend to agree with you that oogle uses this information in some way. It makes absolute sense, and I see no way it violates privacy if no data is collected about who clicked or sent which links (such as rating the trustworthiness of users, or the frequency that a particular user sends a link). From a day-to-day perspective, this means it’s worth sending links for several pages in your emails — which is good for users, too, so it can’t hurt even if we take Matt Cutts at face value on this.
i occurred to me that perhaps that quote from Cutts means that only if the link is actually clicked on will google then register it. if it merely is sent in an email and sits there unattended, google won’t be indexing it.
to me this whole idea really raises privacy issues regardless of how people want to parse it a search engine in my opinion has no business reading/indexing etc personal email. but maybe they do since to them it’s all just data.