Larry Kim says, “One of the biggest areas of speculation, contention, and confusion within the SEO universe over the past six years or so has been whether (or how much) social media signals impact organic search rankings.

But even if Google isn’t directly using social share counts in their search algorithms, there ought to be some other explanation out there about why high share counts correlate with high organic search rankings.

Well, that is exactly what we’re going to research in this post.

Are social shares a ranking signal?

People have noticed the connection between social shares and ranking going back to 2010. But correlating rankings and social signals has been a bit of a cat-and-mouse game.

If you’ve done any SEO at all, you’ve probably noticed that the stories that rank well tend to have high social share counts“.

What’s the Real Relationship Between Organic Rankings & Social Shares?

MOZ

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