Current Thinking On Google+ Impacting Rankings

[HuskyPup]

I noticed today that a scraper that I have been unable to get removed is steadily taking over many of my SERPs and Image results and they have 981 Google+

Are we sure that Google+ has not now incorporated + into the algo, I'm not sure if it was ever decided it were or not, however in light of the above what is the current thinking on this?

Has anyone experienced a provable benefit from Google+?

[tedster]

exporting to trade wholesale manufacturing purchasers

So you are a B2B website. In my experience whether you use ANY form of SM or not depends on whether your target market is using that particular form of SM. In general, SM use by B2B has lagged B2C by a significant time gap so it may not make sense in your particular case.

[netmeg]

Most of my B2B clients' customers aren't there yet - except for LinkedIn. So we're doing some testing there.

B2C is all over social media.

[Collieman]

HP....i would suggest that with a customer base of around 100 that there are 4 key issues:-

1. Do you want to encourage them all to talk together on a G community. If you think of it as a G controlled forum then that is a good comparison. If what you want to do is just to make technical details, help files, statistics and so on available then a blog/normal website might be more appropriate.

2. If a community works well and with such a small base then it might present a formidable barrier to entry for competitors. Effectively it becomes like a members club. You can also make them invitation only so you control entry.

3. If your industry sector lends itself to visuals, image, infographics, posters then this is good. They display really well and impressively.

4.It could be that a good idea to start the community slowly, tie it in to your other G properties,use it as another badge of trust for G.....then after a month or so with only a small number of "members" let it lie quiet until you can judge how successful this is in the longer term. Think of it as a banker.

Just suggestions...but hope they are useful.

[breeks]

I have over 1000 google plus followers to my personal profile, rel author on all articles, just passed 500 followers to my business Google+ page and nothing :). I have met a few people that I enjoy reading their posts. That's the only plus in Google+

[snickles121]

"snickles121 - What is the general theme for your site? Real world products, affiliate or something else?"

Huskypup - Theme of site is Finance and is pure information with editor opinion on question and answer type of stuff. No real products on this site but has adsense on it.

Im trying to get enough followers right to get a official google plus page. Im hoping this might make the difference. Also, if Google is going to help small niches this summer by taking into account social stuff, then I could end up being in a good place. But, I dont want to get my hopes up anymore.

[Dinkar]

Let me add, in order to get those you need to do alot of socializing on the net, and I mean alot.

LOL, there are easy ways to do this. try g+ exchanges etc.

[linkbuildr]

I just finished an audit for a large global brand against their competitors. They were perplexed why a competitor without any real Australian significance (links, domain, content focus, geo targeting etc) jumped into the top 10.

The only thing that stuck out were there 100,000+ G+ followers which grew like crazy over the past year. They were getting any where from 1-5k per day and I still cannot figure out how....learning towards some sort of gaming although that would be weird for such a large brand.

[snickles121]

"LOL, there are easy ways to do this. try g+ exchanges etc. "

Not if you want real visitors with real profiles and active engagement.

[HuskyPup]

Although I only have a small amount of customers I also happen to own and run the webs largest widget trade directory site with an email database of nn,000 that I could easily promote to.

AdSense is allowed on G+ pages?

Is G+ simply a newer version of a forum board?

@Collieman - I'm very interested in your point 3 regarding visuals and especially so HD widget images. Can you explain more? Where are they hosted and can they be watermarked etc?

Is there anywhere Google I can read up on this stuff?

Thanks

[IanCP]

To use an olden day Western expression, why do I always have the feeling, "We're all playing with a crooked wheel"?

As my Dad used to say: "Yes I know, but it's the only game in town".

[IanCP]

@marktraphagen [edited by tedster]

One toolbar PR checker that will show the PR for G+ profiles and pages is [prchecker.net...]

Whoa! I look there and before anything much else, I see:

a) Want more Facebook Likes and Google+ votes? Click to buy Facebook Likes!
b) An Ad: PR1-PR7 Links/Get to the Google TOP 10 in 3-6 Months

Now it might be a useful tool, but it certainly seems to promote everything we should virulently oppose, because that kind of chicanery works against all of us.

Just my opinion.

[Collieman]

HP
The images are hosted on G + and I am fairly sure you can use hi definition, very
Large files indeed

There are an awful lot of photographers doing this now.

Oh and yes any watermarks you puton them survive the upload.many photographers do likewise.

[edited by: tedster at 4:22 am (utc) on Jun 2, 2013]

[netmeg]

(No AdSense on G+)

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I gave it a shot and saw no initial rankings gains for my niche. I didn't really expect any since the number of people who enjoy that niche on Google+ is nearly non-existent.

After roughly 3 weeks I noticed that any new article I wrote that contained images was being scraped and that I was being outranked by new sources for these. I shut down the account after two months, removed all of the G+ buttons and links and my entire site started receiving about 10% more traffic starting 10 days later, especially on new articles.

While that isn't scientific an observation and other factors could have come into play I can say for certain that I got no boost from G+ and that I gained a little traffic when I removed it all, including authorship links. I told myself that I would not give it another shot for at least a year and then only if others began raving about the effects first.

I'm fairly sure Google doesn't want G+ to become a rank influence, or at least they don't want to attract the sort who would use it as one.

[JohnRoy]

Some do rely on Google+ - not for ranking benefits - but for authentication.

If you publish a page with your Google+ credentials on it - I assume a scraper would have a hard time trying to to use your data and be ahead of you.

Integration PuSH Google+ authorship with PuSH feeds to notify Google before wider publication of the standard feed is the trick.. /Robert Charlton msg#4521428 on [webmasterworld.com...]

[spreporter]

If you have 0 likes maybe better to not have any...

Wrong way of thinking, first you start from 0 like everything new, then you join communities, you post on communities, other people slowly like your posts and they add you in their circles and + your page, and within some time you'll see your plus expanding.
That's the way to do it, and in fact, why should we webmasters that our employer is Google do not try to increase the popularity of G+ instead of the kindergarten of the other social giant.
I like G+ it has more serious people and communities and I have the budge in all of my sites.

[Lexur]

why should we webmasters that our employer is Google do not try to increase the popularity of G+

Because one day, Google will discover that they can make more money sending visitors to their own websites (i.e. Google Shopping) than sending them to your site and waiting they click in an ad to back to the seller website.

If you're the seller, it's easy to realize that Google Inc. will make more money if you MUST to advertise through Adwords or uploading your catalog to Shopping than sending visitors to your site for free.

That day your site will be downgraded with some mythological explanations regarding mystical algorithms and magical constellations of links and you will realize that you should have been promoting your site trough G+, Facebook, Twitter and the whole social world rather than promoting that social networks itself.

[Dinkar]

Not if you want real visitors with real profiles and active engagement.

If you want real visitors then use facebook.

[HuskyPup]

Some do rely on Google+ - not for ranking benefits - but for authentication.

@JohnRoy - Is there any evidence for this?

If so for many of us struggling with scrapers etc this would be reason enough alone to have G+ ... Unless the scrapers already have them and that's why they're doing so well!

[JohnRoy]

Evidence? - waiting for others to stop lurking..

Unless the scrapers already have them

Technically I can't see how scrapers can get ones content after the original publisher used the right authorship method.

How to implement is discussed in above mentioned thread.

_{After the [webmasterworld.com...] link opens, paste the following into address bar (after .htm) to reach post: #msg4521437 [or ctrl+f msg:4521437 ]}

[tedster]

Some do rely on Google+ - not for ranking benefits - but for authentication.

Is there any evidence for this?

Yes, I've worked with one site that was crushed by Panda 1.0 and being outranked by scrapers. It seemed to me that they had lost authority and Google had now pegged THEM as the scraper and not the "scrapee".

After using Google+ to build author pages, their Panda problem vanished and now they are rolling on at record levels

[JohnRoy]

Thanks Tedster.

And here's what they did:

What to do? It seemed to me that somehow, the original site had lost its authority despite a powerful backlink profile. How to fix that? What we did was:

1. Use PuSH PubSubHubub technology [code.google.com] to let Google know immediately when new content is published.
2. Delay the existing RSS feed until Google had grabbed the new content.
3. Set up authorship authentication through Google+.

Note that this site uses a stable of ten well respected writers and it seemed that this could only help. It did. Within a few weeks, rankings came back and then just began to climb and climb.
[webmasterworld.com...] msg:4580874

[jamesworley]

Hello!
I had been doing a bit of research about Google+ and found this forum!

I am on Google+ !

[littlecubpanda]

@ Legosghost

Wild story. Google employees gaming the system. Fascinating. A little odious, too.

What does "the site name was of the KW1KW2KW3 EMD type" mean? Can you explain?

[jamesworley]

I am not a Google employee.

I have a YouTube channel and am a YouTube partner, but definitely not a Google Employee.

I only wish I were!

LOL

[HuskyPup]

What does "the site name was of the KW1KW2KW3 EMD type" mean? Can you explain?

Keyword1 keyword2 keyword3 Exact Match Domain

[chalkywhite]

+ confuses me. When I joined I created a page for me and my site. I pointed all "follow" links to the website page. Ive setup rel=author to point to me and rel =publisher to point to the sites page.

This sound right? or should I point rel=author to the the sites page?

The site has tons of followers I have about 5, just not sure if I setup rel=author to the site page that it would be setup correctly.