Number of Social Pages

Abstract illustration of five social-network page icons summed into a single count, one greyed out as legacy, in RankGear indigo and coral.

Number of Social Pages counts how many recognized social-network page URLs appear in a page’s rendered body HTML — legacy Google Plus pages, Facebook pages, LinkedIn company pages, Instagram profiles, and Tumblr subdomains. It returns a raw count of matching URL text, not a tally of unique or verified accounts, so a higher number is not inherently better.

Factor IDRG-SOC-030
FamilySocial Links
MeasurementCount
Measured zoneRendered body HTML with scripts removed

What it measures

This factor sums the matches for five social-network page types found in the page body: legacy Google Plus pages, Facebook pages, LinkedIn company pages, Instagram profiles, and Tumblr subdomains. The output is a single count that spans all five networks combined, giving a rough measure of how heavily a page references these particular social properties.

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How RankGear measures it

RankGear runs five case-insensitive, network-specific regular expressions over the script-free body HTML and adds together every match they produce. Scripts are removed first so that URLs embedded in tracking or widget code do not inflate the total; only URL text present in the rendered body is counted. The five detectors correspond one-to-one with the networks below.

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What RankGear looks for

Google Plus:  plus.google.com/…
Facebook:     facebook.com/<page>
LinkedIn:     linkedin.com/company/<name>
Instagram:    instagram.com/<profile>
Tumblr:       <name>.tumblr.com
NetworkPage type matched
Google PlusLegacy Google Plus pages
FacebookFacebook pages
LinkedInCompany pages
InstagramProfiles
TumblrSubdomains
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How to optimize it

Treat this count as an observation, not a target to inflate. Link only to genuine, maintained social properties that actually help visitors, and use each platform’s current canonical URL. Remove obsolete Google Plus links, since that network is discontinued. Note that a newer URL form a platform now uses may not be recognized by the legacy detector — that is a limitation of the pattern set, not a reason to revert to an older URL shape for the sake of the count.

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Important considerations

  • This counts matching URL text, not unique or verified social properties — the same account referenced twice adds two to the total.
  • The group includes discontinued Google Plus and other legacy URL forms, so part of the count can reflect links that no longer resolve.
  • Repeated matches count separately, and modern or unsupported URL forms may be missed entirely by the legacy patterns.
  • More social links are not inherently better; this is a descriptive signal that relates to position within a measured result set, not a lever that makes a page rank or guarantees any ranking.
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Related factors

Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.

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