Cutts: Infographic Links Might Get Discounted In The Future

In an in-depth interview between Eric Enge and Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts – Cutts said that Google may discount the value of links generated by infographics.

Matt Cutts told Eric:

This is similar to what people do with widgets as you and I have talked about in the past. I would not be surprised if at some point in the future we did not start to discount these infographic-type links to a degree. The link is often embedded in the infographic in a way that people don’t realize, vs. a true endorsement of your site.

Why? Aren’t infographics great linkable content? They are but as Matt said, he finds that often infographics are misleading and outright wrong. Matt said, “They get far off topic, or the fact checking is really poor. “The infographic may be neat, but if the information it’s based on is simply wrong, then it’s misleading people,” Cutts added.

So what does that mean for our The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors? I doubt Google would consider that infographic to be considered “off topic” or “really poor” in terms of fact checking.

But Matt does have a concern with how infographic designers and owners encourage other webmasters to link to the infographic.