Google’s Danny Sullivan has confirmed that off-site sentiment does not impact search rankings. In other words, positive chatter about a particular website will not influence its ranking position, and similarly, negative press around a website will not cause its rankings to go down.
Sullivan clarified this via a reply on Twitter to a user who asked about the impact of sentiment on search algorithms and whether there is a sentiment search operator. Sullivan stated that Google search “does not recognize sentiment,” nor is there any operator for searching by sentiment.
For example, if a website suddenly gets many links due to bad press, possibly because of harsh criticism for some UI changes, Google will recognize the links but not the negative sentiment. In this situation, the website could benefit from the link signals without being harmed by poor sentiment. This inability to recognize sentiment can have downsides, but it may be beneficial if the business is being criticized unfairly.
The Twitter user may have been under the impression that Google recognizes sentiment due to a story from last year. Google’s Gary Illyes allegedly mentioned at a search conference that the search engine pays attention to negative sentiment. However, it is now confirmed that rankings are not impacted by negative sentiment.
