Google +1 Search Impact Reported by Webmaster Tools

[deadsea]

Most of the sites I look at have very few +1s because my clients and I haven't been promoting it. But one site I have access to has thousands of +1s. Webmaster tools is reporting that when the SERPs are annotated with +1 for the site, the click through rate is 2% WORSE. Is this typical? Does anybody else have search impact of +1s in webmaster tools that they can share?

[Chrispcritters]

For the one site where I use Google+ it, too, appears to hurt the homepage but significantly help sub-pages.

[johnmoose]

I saw no advantage after 5 months of having that button, so took it off.

[JamesWt]

As john moose i also think that there is no advantage of this button as having it from last 2 months.

[johnmoose]

Also, it slowed the loading of my pages. So that was another reason to boot it.

[deadsea]

Does WMT report that +1 in the SERPS had a negative effect on the click through rate?

I have a friend that reports that WMT reports lower CTR for his site too when SERPs are annotated with +1. His theory is that Google is showing your site in some case in which it otherwise wouldn't because a friend of the searcher has done a +1 on your site. He thinks that because of this increased exposure, you are showing up for less relevant terms and the CTR is lower.

[Sand]

He thinks that because of this increased exposure, you are showing up for less relevant terms and the CTR is lower

This is most likely the correct answer. For instance, a friend of mine wrote a post about blue widgets. Being the good guy that I am, I plussed his content. Now, I see his post every time I search for anything remotely related to widgets.

I'm never going to click that post in the search results, because I've already read it and know that it doesn't answer the specific problem I'm trying to solve. His CTR probably looks terrible, but the exposure could be helping him on a personal branding level.