Optimizing a business' website for search engines so that it will appear in higher positions on SERPs is carried out primarily by having well-considered keywords featured in its content and by having viable backlinks created on other websites. Search engines like Google rely on these two factors to determine a website's ranking because these are technical elements that the engines' indexing algorithms are able to parse. From there, the ranking may rise even higher if the website subsequently gets a lot of online traffic. However, a website that does not reach either technical goal particularly thoroughly can still receive a high ranking if it is receiving a lot of online traffic from expansive social sharing profiles on popular outlets such as Instagram and Facebook. A web owner who does not have compunctions against using illicit methods to benefit their business can essentially purchase "like" votes for their site on its social sharing profiles. Having many Instagram and Facebook users deliberately upvote the website would obviously be greatly frowned upon if it is discovered by visitors that not all of a profile's upvotes have been organically submitted. However, Google's ranking algorithms do not appear to take into account the number of upvotes and social shares a website has gained on outlets like Facebook because those outlets are self-contained domains that have no bearing on the keyword and backlink content that technically exists for the website. The rules of search engine optimization can seem arbitrary and unfair to well-meaning websites because they can put a lot of effort into well-meaning content but nonetheless receive unsatisfactory amounts of online traffic if the content does not involve the right kinds of long-tail keywords. Search engines do care enough to award high rankings, however, if a website is getting a lot of visits even if they are resulting from its social sharing profiles being used in an underhanded fashion. Because social signals, whether or not they are falsified, are not quantified by indexing algorithms, web owners may be tempted to risk social backlash over falsifying them to prompt more visitors to come to their sites. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/90z4i6/mydadboughtfacebookandinstagramlikes_for/.