Why You Should NOT Link To Social Media Sites
- Thread starter DjSec
- Start date
It is a pretty well established fact that social media platforms like Facebook and Google, through their social media buttons:
1.) “We didn’t click ‘consent’ on any gambling website. So how did Facebook know where we’d been?” (The Guardian, Feb 2025)
This investigation explains how Meta’s tracking tools (like the Meta Pixel) automatically send data to Facebook—even when users never click “accept” on consent banners on gambling sites.
2.) “Revealed: gambling firms secretly sharing users’ data with Facebook without permission” (The Guardian/Observer, Feb 2025)
The report details how dozens of UK gambling sites were found to share user data automatically with Facebook, which was then used to target ads—even without explicit consent.
3.) “Facebook rolls out ‘Link History’ for all users – and uses data for targeted ads” (Search Engine Land, Jan 2024)
This article discusses a new Facebook feature that records the links you click in its mobile browser and uses that data to refine ad targeting, countering the notion that such tracking doesn’t occur.
4.) “How Facebook and Google Track Your Online Behavior” (Medium, Feb 2019)
An overview of the tracking mechanisms employed by these companies—including pixels and URL parameters—that shows how they continue to monitor user activity across sites.
5.) Discussion on tracking beyond direct website visits (Super User, 2011)
Although older, this Q&A thread debates whether Google and Facebook only track activity when you’re on their own sites or also when you visit third-party websites, providing early insights into the issue.
These articles indicate that—contrary to your claim—both Facebook and Google (and similar companies) do track customer activity through various methods on company websites.
The idea that companies purposely send customers to social media just so Facebook can serve them targeted ads is misleading.
Consider a major player like Amazon—its entire business model revolves around keeping customers on its own platform. Every click on Amazon is meticulously tracked and directly contributes to a sale, not merely to ad impressions.
Amazon invests heavily in retaining users and capturing first-party data because that data directly drives conversions and profits.
If there was an advantage in sending traffic to Facebook, you’d see Amazon embedding numerous social media links. Instead, they focus on creating a seamless, in-house shopping experience that maximizes every transaction.
While retargeting is often touted as essential for digital marketing—especially given that first visits rarely convert—there are many other strategies to stay top-of-mind with potential customers without relying solely on ads.
For example, effective methods like targeted email campaigns, personalized website experiences, content marketing, and even push notifications can re-engage visitors in a less intrusive way.
These strategies not only nurture customer interest over time but also allow for a deeper, more organic connection with your audience.
Moreover, advanced analytics and tracking tools (like UTM parameters and customer journey mapping in platforms such as Google Analytics) enable you to determine where your visitors are coming from. This data can clarify whether a significant portion of your traffic is originating from social media channels or other sources, helping you fine-tune your approach.
In essence, if you’re serious about engaging prospects, it’s about diversifying your touchpoints rather than relying on ads—which, frankly, can often be the most disruptive and least engaging method.
When we talk about off-topic links, especially on pages designed to help visitors make a buying decision, every element—including links—needs to serve that specific purpose. Whether you’re discussing oil filters, spark plugs, a '68 Mustang, or a new Buick, the page should be tightly focused on facilitating that decision. Embedding a link that diverts attention—like one to a social media profile—in the midst of detailed product information can confuse or distract a potential customer.
While it’s true that social media channels are extensions of a brand and can be valuable for brand building and retargeting, the primary objective on a product or service page is conversion. Businesses invest heavily in optimizing their sites to keep customers engaged and to capture first-party data, which directly influences sales and customer loyalty. If the goal is to drive a purchase, every link should contribute to that process rather than leading visitors away to platforms where the business has little control over the customer experience.
In essence, the focus should be on maintaining a seamless, conversion-oriented journey on the company’s own site. Social media might serve as a secondary channel for broader engagement or retargeting efforts, but it should not disrupt the primary goal of guiding the customer to a purchase decision. Keeping customers on your own site ensures that you have the data and control needed to nurture and convert them effectively.
PageRank or link juice is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web, and it fundamentally works as follows:
When one page links to another, it’s essentially casting a “vote” for that page. However, not all votes are equal. The influence of a vote depends on the linking page’s own PageRank and the number of outbound links it contains.
This is captured in the original PageRank formula:
PR(A) = (1 - d) + d × [PR(t₁)/C(t₁) + PR(t₂)/C(t₂) + ... + PR(tₙ)/C(tₙ)]
In this equation, each t represents a page linking to page A, C(t) is the number of outbound links on page t, and d is a damping factor—commonly set to 0.85—which accounts for the probability of continuing to follow links. In simpler terms, a page's PageRank is 0.15 plus 0.85 times the sum of a share of the PageRank of every page that links to it.
While digital marketers often use the term “link juice” to describe this concept, it’s just a colloquial way of referring to the authority a page passes along through its outbound links.
This “juice” isn’t a mysterious or arbitrary metric—it’s the mathematical underpinning of how Google’s ranking system was originally designed.
Even if you argue that linking to a site related to a dealership wouldn’t “bleed” PageRank, it’s important to recognize that every link does distribute some of that PageRank based on the rules above.
Ultimately, PageRank remains one of many factors that Google considers when ranking pages.
If you need to be to explain PageRank further please don’t hesitate to ask.
Even if some visitors choose to click on a social media link, every element on a page is designed to either maintain or disrupt a user's state of flow.
When a user is engaged—watching a video or reading an article—they’re in a state that supports deeper decision-making.
Every component, including links, should contribute to that flow.
A social media link, however, is a departure from the primary content. It inherently risks pulling users away from the conversion journey, breaking the focused experience that was meticulously designed to drive action.
In short, while users may click such links out of curiosity, their mere presence can disrupt the intended flow, undermining the page’s overall purpose.
Multiple studies and industry experts confirm that social media platforms aren’t necessarily "burying" posts with external links in a conspiratorial sense, but their algorithms are designed to prioritize native content that keeps users on their platform.
This means that posts with external links tend to see significantly lower organic reach and engagement.
For example, on Facebook, data shows that over 95% of posts in user feeds don’t contain external links, and posts with such links generally get fewer impressions and interactions. Similarly, research on LinkedIn indicates that posts with outbound links receive 20–35% less reach compared to those without links. The underlying strategy is simple: platforms want to retain users so they can serve ads and maximize revenue.
My focus is on keeping customers engaged on my own website, where I can offer a controlled, comprehensive experience—and where I own the data and conversion process.
Social media platforms have the responsibility to make themselves discoverable and retain users on their own sites.
If I had to link out to my social profiles from my site, I risk losing valuable traffic to a platform that’s filled with competitors. Ultimately, it’s about driving meaningful engagement in an environment I control, rather than relying on external channels that may dilute that engagement.
My website is meant to be the one-stop resource where customers get all their answers.
If the GA4 data shows that only a tiny fraction click on the social media links, that indicates they aren’t really interested in leaving for another platform.
It’s a signal that the visitors prefer to find everything they need right here—where I can control the messaging and guide them toward a purchase.
While it's true that Google doesn't impose a formal "duplicate content penalty" for having similar content across different pages, duplicate content can still have a negative effect on your SEO.
Google aims to provide users with diverse and unique information, so when the same content appears on multiple pages (for example, replicating social media posts on your website), Google tends to choose just one version to rank.
This can dilute the overall SEO strength of your content and reduce your chances of ranking well, which is why I refer to it as a de facto penalty, if your content isn’t ranking because of duplication, that’s a significant drawback.
I'm not sure he really said anything...
You want to link to social media sites to help the social media sites show your ads?
Is that why you link to social media sites?
so yeah - I had no idea I was getting into a forum argument with ChatGPT...
You are not it is with me!
What are you even talking about?
I've been doing SEO and website design since 2000, pick one off the list and we can debate it but it sounds like you have already loss the debate.
If your talking about the math for the link juice it came from Phil Cravens paper dated back to around 2002, he was a good friend of mine back when he wrote the paper.
Social media icon in top website header = bad
(but lots of dealers still want it, along with their last 10 years of Carfax and DealerRater award badges)
Social media icon in bottom website footer = not bad
(pretty much expected these days - just look at most non-automotive sites)
(but lots of dealers still want it, along with their last 10 years of Carfax and DealerRater award badges)
Social media icon in bottom website footer = not bad
(pretty much expected these days - just look at most non-automotive sites)
Just to be clear when someone says
I'm thinking what the fu**, someone is already on your site and you want to send them away so you can show them your ads.
Have you lost your freaking mind?
When someone comes into the dealership to buy a car do you send them down the road to look at your billboard before you show them the car?
And when I ask an AI bot to rewrite my message to make less aggressive, you are still debating me, and I don't care if you call in every SEO, chatbot, your mamma or anyone else into the debate, I am either correct or I'm wrong and how you go about convincing me of that is not what is important because it is not about winning the debate it is about learning.
So convince me that dealerships want to spend money on Facebook ads and would rather pay for Facebook ads then sell a car.
Convince me that dealerships care more about likes and follows than selling a car.
Just because it is expected doesn't make it a good thing and it doesn't mean its not hurting your conversions and rankings.
PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. Google figures that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote for the other page. The more votes that are cast for a page, the more important the page must be.
1.) Those links are making Facebook stronger and more powerfull and help Facebook content out rank dealership content.
To calculate the PageRank for a page, all of its inbound links are taken into account. These are links from within the site and links from outside the site.
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))
That's the equation that calculates a page's PageRank.
It's the original one that was published when PageRank was being developed, and it is probable that Google uses a variation of it but they aren't telling us what it is.
It doesn't matter though, as this equation is good enough.
The juice that flows from the links are divided by all the links on the page.
So the internal links on the site get less linkjuice sorry power, or pagerank because it is being divided my the links that are going to the social media sites.
In addition to this it is an off topic link because every link on the page should be there to help the user have a better experience, and if your talking about oil filters and place a link to send a user to Facebook to show them an add about cars, because you like spending money with Facebook more than making money, that is not a good user experince.
Other words, not having links to social media sites would give you a compeitive advantage over your compeition!
