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+?

[aristotle]

What about sites that don't have G+ buttons on their pages? How can it be an accurate ranking factor when some sites have the button and some don't?

[HuskyPup]

What about sites that don't have G+ buttons on their pages?

It's a bit of a coincidence that a guy who scrapes an entire site of mine has now replaced me for many images and SERPs places plus the image on the SERPs page and just so happens to have 981 Google+

There is no other difference between his site and mine except for the fact his has no design whatsoever, everything is on plain white pages, and that he has ALL 1,100 image page links on the index page ... Yes, 1,100 on the index page.

My site is 7/8 years older than his and is a recognised authority with many relevant trade backlinks from the last 15 years yet Google has made all these replacements. He has hardly any backlinks, is not a recognised authority within my widget trade and basically all he has done is scraped ALL the best sites within my industry and presented them as his own all under different domain names.

I'm not saying it is Google+ however has anyone a better explanation?

[Leosghost]

Should there not be a "+" in your thread title ?..

Thus

"Current Thinking On Google+ Impacting Rankings"

[HuskyPup]

There was and it was worded differently, a mod changed it to this or maybe Google re-wrote the title?!?!?!

[Leosghost]

There was

That's what I figured ..:) ..the "new" title makes no sense at all..

[tedster]

I added the "+". Sometimes symbols in the title bar create technical troubles - sorry for the confusion.

[helenp]

I was doing a google+ page, and was wondering if I should add it to my page, as to start with I have no google+ and I guess its not easy to get.
I went into google + and it says this about adding the batch to your website:
"If you’ve created a Google+ page, we strongly recommend linking from that page to your website and vice versa. Linking your Google+ page and your site like this not only helps you build relationships with friends and followers, but also gives Google information we can use to determine the relevancy of your site to a user query in Google Web Search."

So if google+ impacts ranking, then I shouldnt add it as I have 0, any thoughts?

[arutoria]

Has anyone experienced a provable benefit from Google+?

I remember when Google+ was first released, there were a lot of "pollution" at the SERP, as Google promotes the pages you +1'ed to your personalized result.

Those promotions seemed to have faded lately. But occasionally I still see strange personalized results which can only be explained by my G+ activities. So I think if you can get your readers to +1 your pages, you are more likely to see them return to you through Google, but not necessarily for others.

However, if you are looking for referral traffic, Facebook is still the better place to go...

[IngoZ]

If they will announce +1 as ranking factor the next day most webmasters will add the button to their site. Everyone wants to rank in Google, even if they don't like the button or Google+.

[helenp]

If they will announce +1 as ranking factor the next day most webmasters will add the button to their site. Everyone wants to rank in Google, even if they don't like the button or Google+.

Thats not my point of view,
I am wondering if the google+ button may harm you if you have 0 or very few likes and if it could favour you if many.
If you have 0 likes maybe better to not have any....

No button could be neutral state = no information = does no impact on serp, no negative or positive.

[HuskyPup]

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

Yep, my thinking also, I was wondering whether I should contact maybe 1,000 of the larger companies within my industry and suggest the idea to them ... or should I only contact 50 ... or possibly my full email listing of 25,000? ... or join en masse from WebmasterWorld members here?

I just have this feeling that no matter what we may believe they are doing that they MUST be using it or seriously considering using it otherwise why would they keep pushing it at us? I'm pretty sure we're all smart enough to get to know how to use it without having to engage in their Facebook look-a-like attempt or their silly circles, heh, maybe they won't be so silly if people genuinely interact with it.

What I do know is this. The past two days at the exhibition I am currently participating in Germany has driven more genuine enquiries than nearly all of 2013 via The Net. So many people all saying similar things about not trusting the sites they find, wanting to actually MEET the people behind the name and, believe this or not and people who know what I do will laugh, wanting to touch and feel my widgets:-)))

Tell you what helenp, both of us can join and we'll be in each other's circle!

[helenp]

Tell you what helenp, both of us can join and we'll be in each other's circle!

Just done a page and nobody in my circle, suppose you may fit lol.
Maybe i should just delete the page?

[netmeg]

Certain industries are using it. It has some advantages. But most of my users (i.e. civilians) aren't there.

For a short time, whenever I posted something to one of my sites' Google+ page, it showed up in the Knowledge Graph spot which was cool, but then it stopped doing that.

[marktraphagen]

I have been doing extensive research on and tracking of the effect of Google+ on organic search results since Google+ was first introduced (I got an account on its third day of beta, invite-only existence).

In my opinion +1's (which is what I think you mean when you say a page has "981 Google+", are not the most significant (or even very significant) factor in how Google+ affects organic search. Our studies show no discernible correlation between number of +1's and organic search rankings. Furthermore, last year Google's Matt Cutts remarked in an interview that they had found +1's to be a very weak signal, and therefore they were not being used as a search signal in any significant way.

Where we have discovered the real search authority of Google+ is in two areas: 1) Verified Page-to-site connection, and 2) Google+ Profile and Page PageRank.

1) Having a link from a Google+ page to an official site page with a reciprocal link back from the site to the G+ Page allows Google to integrate information between the two. That means the G+ page helps Google to better discern and evaluate what the site should rank for. Therefore, actual regular content with engagement from others seems to increase the effectiveness of this connection.

2) Google+ personal profiles and Pages have Google PageRank, although it can be hard to see. (One toolbar PR checker that will show the PR for G+ profiles and pages is [prchecker.net...] What this means is that G+ profiles and Pages can build their own Google search authority. They build this authority both by internal G+ links (in the form of engagement from, shares of posts from, and mentions by other high-authority G+ profiles and pages) and by more traditional links from regular web pages. This is another way in which a Google+ profile or Page can reflect search authority back toward a web site.

[edited by: tedster at 6:12 pm (utc) on May 30, 2013]

[dethfire]

I have my site connected as a Publisher and my G+ button gets a few hits each day. My site continues to trend lower. I don't see much affect yet.

[HuskyPup]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld marktraphagen

Thanks for the info, I'm going to enjoying reading your article...I hope!

Do you feel that it is possble by using Google+ that Google may be able to undo, in the future, some/much of the incorrect attribution they have made? By that I mean actually assign original articles and images to their correct authors?

When creating a Google+ page does one go personal first and then add a company or is it possible to go company then add personnel ... see, I know nothing!

Is there any perceived advantage in have a linkedin and facebook page as well?

I'm thinking that IF I have to do this darned social stuff then better to get it all over and done with in one go, or just turn my back on it altogether and talk to people face to face.

Would I be correct in thinking that there is a huge difference in attitude between US and EU thinking on this? I don't mean politically, I mean perceived attitudes of meeting people in the real world as opposed to online or at distance?

[Leosghost]

Does having a G+ account ( with more than just a few +s ) help rankings?

Make of this what you will..

A few months ago .Iwas searching for information on a very precise veterinary medical condition..

I knew what it was ..but was looking to see if there had been any new developments in the treatment..

At #1 in SERPs was a site with around 300 G+s and a picture of the site owner ( an Indonesian woman between 30 and 40 years old ) ..the site name was of the KW1KW2KW3 EMD type..but running on blogger..

The site contained amongst other things her biography..she is an ex Google employee..worked for them for around 3 years..a large number of her +s were also from ex / or current Google employees..

The information contained on her site was a "stock" veterinary with dog photo..and a few paragraphs about the condition in detail..what struck me was that the English was "broken/disjointed" and that some sentences appeared to be missing..I got the distinct impression that she did not actually know what she was talking about, but had maybe copied it ( changing the words enough to avoid being "caught" )..the site evidently ran adsense :)

The site copyright showed it went "live" last year 2012..

In the footer were links to various other sites, each about either human medical conditions, or animal medical conditions, always of the KW1KW2KW3 eEMD type ( the on hovers showed me that they lead to a mixture of blogger accounts and some dot coms ) ..I clicked on some and found that without exception, the dotcom sites were no longer working and timed out, or redirected to other blogger accounts owne by the same woman..and dealing with the specific subject that the dotcoms had done previously..again always with adsense on them..
( more about this later* ).but links which the on hover showed went direct to blogger, all worked..and all had the same kind of stock photos.."broken /disjointed" English with sentences apparently missing..and the same "BIO"..

Taking a sentence from each site and entering it into Google, showed me that she invariably was #1 for the precise medical condition..and that her G+s were shown for each..as was her photo..

I went back to the first SERP ( I had kept the tab open ) and checked the sites which were lower down the page..

At #5 ..I found a site, written by a mother and daughter team of veterinarians..complete with their phone numbers, opening times etc..and the original text that the first site ( with all the G+s and owned by the ex Google employee ) had obviously copied and respun..( and not knowing what much of the technical medical terms meant she had omitted some, and changed the order of others ) ..the original text made sense..and the page copyright showed it to have been placed online in 2008..

( the Ex Google employee's BIO says that she worked for them from 2008 to 2011 )

I then checked via the wayback machine..and some whois tools ..into some of the dotcoms that she linked to from her various blogger sites..and which no longer were on line..some had been online for only a year..some for two years..

The texts were always the same "broken/disjointed" English, the subjects were always those ( not only medical subjects ) which get a great deal of traffic..

*I found she has a network of near a hundred sites..and some of her G+ friends have similar "networks" with similar obviously scraped and rewritten content on various subjects..always with adsense ..always ( now ) on blogger..

The monthly adsense revenues must be quite good..

They all are in G+..they all show high in SERPs ( G+ scores and photos next to their links )..So at least one ex Google employee has evidence that a reasonable number of G+s influences one's SERP position..and has bulit a human scraping system around that fact and adsense and the blogger platform..

Lastly..just prior to writing this..I was looking for specific information on transferring account data from one android phone to another..I had 4 specific queries to run..in each case the #1 result was accompanied by a portrait of the site owner or writer.and their G+ score was in every case in the 3000 to 5000 range..

I hesitated to write this post ( I saw the thread when it began, and have returned to read it as it has evolved ) as I find Larry's insistence on trying to "strong arm" webmasters into giving up our personal details into G+ particularly unpleasant and I would like for G+ to vanish without trace ( but it probably will not , as he would look pretty stupid, and apparently no one at G has the guts to tell him that the few who are using it are primarily marketroids abusing it or hoping to do so )..But there is no doubt that Google are boosting G+ account holders in SERPs ( even over those that they are stealing from )..and I would be very surprised if the network of sites which I discoverd are the only ones being run by current or ex Googlers who are fully aware that in order to make G+ "appealing"..word has gone out from Larry to give the sites whose owners are in G+ a boost in SERPs..

[HuskyPup]

Thanks Mike, that was just as I thought and would probably explain how the guy who's scraped me and several others have managed to avoid being caught, so far.

I've started reading marktraphagen's article, very interesting, however it's time for the fair to close and I need to seriously rehydrate on Tucher ... A very good German beer:-)))

[Play_Bach]

> in their Facebook look-a-like

If only it really was, people would probably use it. Unfortunately, G+ is so unlike Facebook that I don't see any reason to use it aside from establishing to Google that I'm the rightful owner of the site.

[helenp]

In google+ support they say:
"Update your site's home page by adding a link to your Google+ page, like this:

<a href="https://plus.google.com/[yourpageID]"
rel="publisher">Find us on Google+</a>

To find your page URL, open your page and copy the web address from the browser address bar.

It's best to add the link to your most significant page. Usually but not always this is your home page; for example, if you’ve created a page for a product, you can add the link to the product description page."

But what if I have many most significant pages? For exampel as in my case, homepage in 3 diferent languages?
So this I cant add to all pages?
I would prefer to all pages as people often doesn´t land on the homepages

[edited by: helenp at 4:47 pm (utc) on May 30, 2013]

[diberry]

What I do know is this. The past two days at the exhibition I am currently participating in Germany has driven more genuine enquiries than nearly all of 2013 via The Net. So many people all saying similar things about not trusting the sites they find, wanting to actually MEET the people behind the name

I actually find this encouraging. I'm in this for the long haul, so I have built my business on the assumption no "gateway" (search, social media, any way people find sites) will last forever. It's the relationships between people - webmasters and visitors, and visitors and visitors, and webmasters and other webmasters - that can last no matter which gateways come and go.

[helenp]

hmmm.
I have an old page wich I hardly used and for some months ago I tried to verify it, they sent me a postcard and when I entered the pin it said the pin was incorrect.

Today I looked about the google+ thing again, and it looked to me that the old page was not a business page, so I did a new one. The information to give out is different, this time did not ask for direction but for url.
I am reading in support page:
[support.google.com...]

then I clicked on the link how to verify and it says these things are necesarry to verify the page:
Your Google+ page must be authorized by your commercial entity, organization, brand, or product.
Your Google+ page’s profile must contain a link to your organization’s website.
Your organization’s website must connect to your Google+ page, by adding the Google+ badge or by adding a snippet of code.
Your Google+ page must already have a meaningful number of followers.

So it looks like the company pages have changed.

[edited by: helenp at 5:27 pm (utc) on May 30, 2013]

[Collieman]

I use the Google communities to talk and develop areas of interest. Some of the links back are do follow. Very early days but if you are in the right industry sector then the communities look like a good bet as being valuable in the future. BTW....its not the old style grab the KW for a community, but i think those who get the right amount of early user momentum ( number of posts or followers) that is important.

[HuskyPup]

Collieman- Are the industry sectors mostly IT based?

How do you search for a keyword community?

I've never been a fan of social networking however I feel it's extremely important we take or refuse G+ on its professional merits and 'if' it helps us to resolve any problems, then we have to explore the possibilities.

Questions I need the answers to:

1. Do I have to register first as an individhual?

2. Then do I link a business?

3. What if I am the CEO and retire in 6 months time? What happens to everything?

4. Do I assume all company details are easily changeable?

I ask these things since I do not want to have someone/myself constantly updating stuff... I've seen the things my girls get up to on FB and T...

Thanks
HP

[Collieman]

Hello HP

Photography and image based sectors seem to work well in G communities. There are some very large IT communities but they tend to be mostly people either wanting help or advertising their own services.
Professional merits?
I see some communities where the people involved are people I would consider customers. So yes this alone makes it worth consideration. Personally I think it is a good way to meet or connect with other people in your industry.
Benefit to rankings? Well all the G+ links to your profile carry page rank...and then the G+ ecosystem also has its own rules for Follow and no follow links ...so yes there is potential here for the communities and profiles to be treated and ranked just the same as any other http page.
You have to have a G account but this is easy to do.
Yes...you create a brand or business page as a subset of the individual account.
If you retire? Well the simplest option is to appoint your successor as a moderator to help monitor and control the community.i don't know if there is a way, at the moment , to change the ownership of a community.
Company details? Well yes they are changeable but for communities I am not sure that it has relevance. The community name will usually be the industry in which you operate plus maybe other specifiers. Very much like this forum.
The easiest way to explain this will be through email so I can send the links ..PM me if you like. I am just a beginner at this,there are better qualified people and I can direct you to them...see Mark Traphagen, earlier poster , for instance.
But I can show you what I do know.
Sector is travel uk based. I do however have a small understanding of some heavy industry sectors...power stations, industrial filters and so on.
Good luck

[Dymero]

HuskyPup,

Also make sure you're going where your audience is. G+ is still in its infancy, so it's possible that you may do better on Facebook or Twitter. I'd still open up a G+ page, especially if you're a local business because of the Maps angle, but don't miss out on opportunity if it's primarily found elsewhere.

[snickles121]

I have over 1900 plus likes to my site, plus 1900 followers to my google plus brand page and over 800 google plus followers to my personal name and it has not yet made any improvements to rankings.

[snickles121]

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

[HuskyPup]

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

I'm a world leading-brand producer (within my widget industry) with exclusive products exporting to trade wholesale manufacturing purchasers on every continent however our regular customer number base is very small, less than 100.

For ages I've been trying to wrap my head around etc the "necessity", if any at all, of any type of social networking since, in reality, my social networking is done at trade fairs, customer weddings, customer parties, funerals and a huge amount via personal SMS text messaging.

I don't want to get into loads of inane chit-chat with others yet I can't help but feel I may possibly be missing some type of opportunity ... eveyong nodding in agreement please say "Yeah"!

Or, as has been said many times, this social networking stuff just ain't for everyone?