Report: Google Plus Up 27pct Feb-Mar 2012

[engine]

Report: Google+ Up 27pct Feb-Mar 2012 [pcmag.com]

It's time to check in on Google+! New numbers from Experian Hitwise suggest the number of visits to Google+ is up 27 percent between February and March, reaching a total of more than 61 million visits.

In contrast, Experian Hitwise reports that the Google+ competitor Facebook is down 1.3 billion visits between July of 2011 and March of 2012 — a 15-percent drop. But that still puts Facebook at a grand total of approximately 7 billion visits for March, or just over 114 times the traffic of Google+.

[Marketing Guy]

I wonder how many of the 61 million visits have been pushed to Google+ via SERPs?

IMO Facebooks lead in market share here is much higher than those figures suggest. There's a vast difference between someone going to Facebook through choice and ending up on Google+ because they've search for something and it's been forced in front of them.

These days I've been taking any Google PR efforts with the same pinch of salt that I give to Adwords keyword tool search volumes. ;)

[mark_roach]

I don't think many of those 61 million visits are from the UK which is quite a surprise considering Google's total dominance in search over here.

I have recently re-added the Google plus one button to my site after an unsuccessful trial a few months back. Net result after more than 2 weeks, 2 +1s from a single person. This compares to hundreds of Facebook shares, likes and Twitter tweets over the same time period.

Added to the fact the button increases my (WMT) page load time by 30% I am giving it another week or so before the button is removed again and it won't be replaced until there is real evidence of Google plus being used here in the UK.

[blend27]

--whatever the company technically defines as an "active user." --

NOT sure what Larry means by "active users" but jugging by the number of scrapers coming from known server farms on my sites with "http://www.google.com/search" as a referrer is up 500% :(

[Vamm]

I suggest the thread title to be changed to

Report: Google Plus Up 27pct Feb-Mar 2012

if possible

[lexipixel]

I wonder how many of the visits were due to GOOG merging their properties and forcing people into a visit... I think I gave them a click and a few seconds when I was checking out how the consolidation of power was being force fed to users.

But, lets give Google the benefit of the doubt that people actually wanted to visit, and then crunch the numbers...

But that still puts Facebook at a grand total of approximately 7 billion visits for March, or just over 114 times the traffic of Google+.

January Comscore report put average time on site for Google+ members at a mere 3.3 minutes for the entire month. In contrast, Facebook members spent an average of 7.5 hours on the site in January.

That means the Facebook to Google+ "engagement factor" is somewhere in the range of 15,000:1

[lexipixel]

My number above, (15,000:1) is based on believing visitors actually wanted to be on G+ when/if they were, and that every minute of every day, for every (1) person engaging with G+, there are 15,000 people engaging with FB.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Google is late to the social scene and everyone has roots on Facebook that don't get carried over if they move to G+. I think G was doomed from the start, trying to beat the established site without anything new to offer was a bad idea.

As for the 27% increase, none of my family will move over to G+ but every webmaster I know is taking advantage of having their picture in serps next to their content. Some have even figured out that you need to make the connection to your G+ account ONE time and then you can delete the G+ account but still get special serp appearance. G will still add a photo next to results even if it's from a closed profile. Desperation?

[greenleaves]

so they now have 60.999 million webmasters and 1000 actual users on google +

[loner]

This comparison is laughable. Wouldn't it be more realistic to compare Goop lus to MySpace?

[edited by: loner at 9:38 pm (utc) on Apr 9, 2012]

[mark_roach]

I have created a simple poll on my forum. So far only one person has said they use G+ and over 50% have never heard of it. This compares to over 90% of people who are Facebook users.

[Seb7]

Yep, Facebook is atleast 100 times more active than Google+.
I've already removed a number of Google+ buttons - useless things.

Though I wouldnt be surprised if Facebook has now peaked, which would be an ideal situation for Google.

[ChanandlerBong]

I spent about 20 minutes on G+ last week - because I had to. Anyone who uses Picasa will understand me when I say that. They're finding more and more ways of forcing G+ onto people. Result with me was that I'm now thinking "there's no way I would be here voluntarily!"

[francie brady]

greenleaves:

so they now have 60.999 million webmasters and 1000 actual users on google +

... exactly, 60.999 early (hijacked/kidnapped) adapters ;-)