Simply put, Open Graph Protocols are little pieces of code on a webpage that Facebook and other social media sites use to figure our how you want your content to display on their site. In particular, you will see Open Graph in play when you post a link in a Facebook post. Open graph tells Facebook what information to display in relation to that URL.
For example, Open Graph indicates which image to grab from a page and what description to use. Open Graph is placed in the header of your website, in the same area where you put your meta tags.
Most social media platforms support some form of Open Graph. Twitter uses what are called Twitter Cards, which is essentially the same thing as an Open Graph.
The Open Graph website is at https://ogp.me
While Open Graph is meant for social media, search engines will crawl over this code as they crawl a webpage. As Open Graph is providing things like the title of the page and a description of the page, target keywords are going to naturally be located in this code.
For this test, two identical pages were created. The only difference between the pages was the existence of Open Graph protocols in the source code on one page, and not the other.
Results
The page with Open Graph is the only page to index and rank.
Conclusion
Open Graph is extremely easy to add to a website and with it providing an edge, there’s really no reason not to do it. Using Open Graph has the same type of feel as when SEOs discovered that they could put keywords in an Img Alt and get an edge.
Open Graph is intended for social media and not specifically intended for search engines, in the same way that img alts are intended for the visually impaired. As such, Open Graph feels almost like a free pass for a little old school keyword stuffing. Though, as with all things, don’t over-do it and keep things natural. We’re not sure how long this edge will last, but if you have sites that are not using Open Graph or Twitter Cards, now is the time to do it.
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