As of now most social media site’s don’t pass on much link juice or Google PageRank because of the nofollow tag but I think at some point the major search engines are going to have to take social media into consideration when ranking one page over another. If people are talking about it on social media site’s is likely that is important.

Maybe this will be something they will introduce into their TrustRank algorithm. The bottom line is if you wish to stay ahead of the curve then start joining social media sites today… which ones?… all of them, because who knows if or when Google will add social media mentions to their algorithm but it is likely it will happen and to some extent it already has (such as social media sites that offer dofollow links). One other thing to keep in mind is that social media search engines like http://www.blogcatalog.com/search do already exist and could potentially grow in usage very quickly.

I decided to use this tool for a fun little experiment and according to Google search trends Star Wars has more search volume than Star Trek.

Features of Google Insights:

• Narrow data to specific categories, like finance, health, and sports.
• Anticipate demand for your business so you can budget and plan accordingly.
• Know where to find your customers. See how search volume is distributed across regions and cities.

More Examples