Google uses social signals and links in ranking algorithm

It is official, Google has confirmed what was suspected for sometime now; Links from social networks like Facebook and Twitter do act as one of the many signals used in ranking pages within their search engine.

A recent video over at Google Webmaster Central Channel shows Matt Cutts from Google explaining the reason for using these social signals and why it is import to the relevance of a webpage.

A post over at Search Engine Land explains how the new authoritative tools that can rank a twitter profile, for example can be used to create a value of a link from one twitter account vs. a link from another. This means that social links will most likely play a larger role in the future of SEO