Can a Google +1 increase position?

[helenp]

Hi, dont know but on the 3rd of february we lost position in google, not badly but one noticie in amount of visitors, still on first page but on the bottom.

New sites appeared on top, and at least one of them have a +1 button with 16 reviews, so I wonder if that can actually influence in the serps, this site is first in search after the adds.

So to test I added a +1 button in my homepage, however its more than 100 kb, it makes my homepages size the doubble...its very heavy, I have another share application (facebook, twitter etc) and that is not that heavy.
What do you think.
Is it worth to have the +1 button?
Thanks,

[helenp]

Lol,
Also just checked, the company in question was created in 2009, and is in google map and has 16 reviews...while most company does not have any or maybe max 1 review, entered to check the reviews and they are all friends as they all have been done between the 9th and 12th of december.....

[Marketing Guy]

I've found +1s to be very low in comparison to other social actions. On an information site, email to a friend still leads the pack, with Twitter a close second, Facebook a low third and +1 almost non existent.

Depends on your industry though.

The relative impact comes with scale - I notice sites I +1 will jump up a page or so in SERPs for my own logged-in personalised results. Whether or not this will pass onto normal SERPs if enough people favour the same site is anyones guess, but I'd wager we're a long time off before we see any notable impact on normal SERPs yet.

IMO there's too high a percentage of SEO / Internet marketing people using +1s vs real people for the data to be clean enough for Google to filter into search results.

[helenp]

Even been interested in this, but what about the google-authorship-tag? Just read about that having it can increase your position, however I imaginge that is for personal blogs and articles and not for comercial sites.

Looks kind of funny if I open a google +account as developer and my photo comes up in the serp on the commercial website.....

[netmeg]

Well no, you'd want to use the rel="publisher" tag in that case. And the commercial entity should start their own Google+ page.

[helenp]

Well no, you'd want to use the rel="publisher" tag in that case. And the commercial entity should start their own Google+ page.

Thanks but the page in google + for in companies and users is the same, they ask for First name, last name and a photo.....they even ask for birthday.
I went to [google.com...] and from there create your google + page, and its just the same.
So do I put the company name as first name and no photo?

Thanks,

[rhornsby]

I believe you need a personal Google+ account in order to create a Google+ Page for your business.

[helenp]

I believe you need a personal Google+ account in order to create a Google+ Page for your business.

But as a company that makes no sence as in a society there is not 1 owner, so who is the one to open the personal page? Just dont get it.

[rlange]

helenp wrote:
But as a company that makes no sence as in a society there is not 1 owner, so who is the one to open the personal page? Just dont get it.

Facebook has a similar requirement. With Facebook, you don't necessarily need to start with a personal account, but if you create a page without one, you get a "business account", which is really just a stripped down version of a personal account; first name, last name, date of birth—all required.

Neither Facebook nor Google+, as far as I can tell, are very friendly toward businesses in this regard. (I, personally, am very curious how most businesses handle their pages on various social networks, but that's a topic for another thread.)

--
Ryan

[helenp]

Facebook has a similar requirement. With Facebook, you don't necessarily need to start with a personal account, but if you create a page without one, you get a "business account", which is really just a stripped down version of a personal account; first name, last name, date of birth—all required

I have a page in facebook, however as far as I can see it looks more friendly as I created the profile yes, then I did the companypage, but i was able to add the others in the company as administrators also.

I thought the publicity was funning saying add google + for companies, click here to start and then ask for personal details without explaining any futher.

Regarding many social, its rather easy posting in twitter then it automatically is posted in facebook.

[syed]

The answer is 'yes' but it depends on the level of competition and position - if the competition is high enough, even hundreds +1 could unlikely increase the position in top 3. If you are talking unique keywords that don't get searched a lot (similar to what most SEOs test about), then it does effect and it could even bring it to #1 position as proven in couple of tests recently.

[CainIV]

I think it would definitely be a signal that is used by Google. How much it is used in rankings now or in the future remains to be seen.

But it is a social signal and if you have a well-developed community you will likely want to develop that out.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

If you do not have Google+ on your site it seems to NOT be a ranking factor. If you DO have Google+ on your site and are not getting any clicks to it you may actually be hurting your own rankings since the message to Google is "not very popular compared to xyz site".

Use Google+ if your visitors use it, otherwise dump the bloat altogether, imo. It doesn't belong on all sites.

[nomis5]

Let's face it, no one has the slightest idea that is based on any facts. It's all speculation and very vague opinion.

I'm not going there at the moment because I hope it dies a long and lingering death.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Let's face it, no one has the slightest idea that is based on any facts.

You're right, what we do know is that the little +1 button on the bottom of this page is rarely clicked but it ALWAYS loads a Google file to record your IP. It's not an accident that Google offers no static equivalent like twitter and Facebook do.

Since Google again records your IP when you log into a Google product like adsense or adwords they know who you are on this forum even if you use a pen name (simple matter of matching post time with file load time). Is that really necessary? So even if it does/does not increase position it DOES increase Google's positional knowledge about YOU.

Is Google profiling webmasters? again who knows for sure but I'd bet my bottom dollar on it... so should I watch what I write or continue to write what I think, it may impact my rankings with this company.

[nomis5]

Sgt_Kickaxe,

What you say might be true but multiple intenet connections solve that problem? I have three. More worrying, indeed truly frightening, is that if what you say is true then freedom of speech is at stake.

Are search engines moniring this site? And if so are they identifying posters here to their websites? What do you think?

[rango]

If you +1 a page, then the people who have circled you will see it higher in the SERPs (a LOT higher). Depending on how many people circle you on G+, that may or may not reach a lot of people.

Now, if someone who is circled by a LOT of people +1s one of your pages, then that will reach a lot more people and you probably would see some effect.

I don't think the +1s are all that valuable at the moment, but what I do think is valuable is starting to build up your audience on G+ so you have some leverage. I imagine for the people who have hundreds of thousands of followers on G+, +1ing their own pages is probably already pretty worthwhile.