Google guru Matt Cutts has provided confirmation on which many in the SEO community sensed was on the horizon in the word of Internet search – social networking factors in search results.

Those casting their minds back to May 2010 may recall Cutts, who’s recognized for applying Google’s webmaster guidelines and cracking down on link spam, proclaiming that Google’s search algorithms did not take into consideration social network components when identifying the search results for a website. Nevertheless, the search giant has executed a U-turn and it has declared that it has now changed.

Cutts has gone to many lengths to push that it does not necessarily mean that the more followers a business has on Twitter or Facebook, the higher it will eventually rank in Google’s search results. Rather, followers with an impressive reputation will be the key to search engine optimisation.

As expected, Google hasn’t revealed just how this will work, nor are we anticipating them to, but some figures from the search engine optimisation industry believe that link building is going to be served from your followers ‘re-tweeting’ your posts on Twitter. All the links included in your tweets may also be considered.

Many SEO jobs taken on by those in the industry will have some element of social networking related to them. It is no surprise that Twitter’s meteoric increase in reputation now has a bearing on search engine results, but search engine optimisation professionals will be watching very carefully to see how this plays out with Facebook, given the posturing between the social networking giant and Google in recent months.