Many marketers are wondering about the effects of Google+ on search results, and for anyone with a Google+ profile, a few personalized searches make those effects quite apparent. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Marshall Lee the vampire king (don't be afraid, it's just Rand) explains how having the right circlers on Google+ can lead to top-ranked results for even the broadest of queries in their SERPs.
In case you're unfamiliar, Rand is Marshall Lee the Vampire King.
For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard:
Video transcription
Howdy,Moz fans, and welcome to a spooooky Halloween edition of Whiteboard Friday! I'm wearing some fangs this week, so if you have some trouble understanding me, don't worry, all the text is right down there below.
I wanted to talk a little about using Google+ to appear in Google's top results. It's really interesting what we've been observing over the last few weeks and months of Google's development, so check this out. If I do a search for "data science," and I'm logged into my Google+ account (which is "randfish," right—randfish@gmail), I see under data science "How Moz's Data Science Team Works." Which is pretty weird, actually—I think that's very strange, because this was just posted on our Dev Blog, which isn't on our main site. It's a subdomain, and it doesn't rank very well. If you search and you're not logged in, you won't find it in the first 100 results at all. It's showing up here because it's been shared by an account that I follow. It'll say, "Moz shared this." And that's happening because of the Google+ integration.
You might say, "Okay, that's moderately interesting." I can search for very broad things, too, like "industry survey," and get—yes, the S&P Industry Survey of the Americas, the Standard & Poors—but then I get "Take the 2013 Moz Industry Survey." Whoa! Suddenly Moz is ranking all over the place. Again, this is happening because Jonathon Colman, Dharmesh Shah, Pete Meyers, and one other person I follow on Google+ +1'd it. Google+ biasing again.
And there's more. I tried some queries for "happy Halloween." Happy Halloween—think how broad a search query that is. There was a post by Gianluca that he had shared today with a photo, and that showed up in my results. Consumer purchasing power—a Google+ post by Avinash Kaushik showed up because it was shared and I follow him. Patrick Stewart! Patrick Stewart, I mean it's a celebrity query that gets millions of searches a month (well, probably hundreds of thousands because Star Trek TNG hasn't been on for a while, but in our hearts it's always been on). A post by George Takei, right? I follow George Takei on Google+ so a post from him about Patrick Stewart is in there (it was a delightful post, by the way).
What this means for marketers, particularly SEOs who are using search and social and content together in their marketing, is the audience on Google+ is becoming more and more valuable to us. These are search-savvy, tech-savvy folks who are potentially reachable, and reachable without the classic kinds of ranking signals. I don't have to do one tenth of the work that I had to do to rank for these types of queries before. All I have to do is get you to follow me on Google+.
Even if these people aren't using Google+ as a social network—even if they're not visiting plus.google.com, and they're not sharing things and following people and +1'ing—it doesn't matter, because they're still being biased so long as they follow your account. So long as you're encircled by those individuals, it's valuable. And by the way, this is not just happening to people who have set up Google+ and are actually following you. It happens to anyone who is logged into a Google account, and has connected with you over email. Meaning, they've exchanged one or a few emails back and forth—it can't just be you spamming them, it's got to be that you're actually receiving email from them as well.
Gmail is another way to get this same sort of bias. You can see it in there if you're logged into your Gmail account, and you can see "Hey, I'm not following this person on Google+. Oh, we've exchanged emails, so they're showing me these results higher that they've +1'd."
Google+ sharing obviously is critical because of these influential factors, to SEOs in particular. But, be very careful, because think about this—if I shared every single page that I wanted to rank on just so that anyone who followed me on Google+ would be biased to seeing it? I would soon lose subscribers. In fact, I'm sure I would lose them very fast. People would be like, "What the hell is Rand doing filling up my stream? None of these have +1s." It wouldn't surprise me at all if Google is using some indication of metrics around usage to actually determine, "Hey, wait a minute, this is getting no +1s, no shares, no comments; why would I show this to anybody? I'm pushing it down in the results. I'm not going to show it."
These are all things that did receive quite a lot of activity. Well, actually, Gianluca's post hadn't received any activity yet, but it was very recent and lots of his posts do receive activity. So, if you overshare, you have to be careful—I like to say I think discretion is key here. Also, even if you don't have a Google+ audience, it doesn't matter because influencers—people who do have audiences on Google+—might be sharing your stuff.
That's fascinating to imagine. It's almost like "Hey, I don't use Twitter, but if I can just get someone to tweet some of this stuff for me, I know I'll get traffic." Well, on Google+, it's not just the traffic you'll get—you'll also get high rankings from all of their audience. It's really remarkable.
By the way—one thing of warning. There is a time decay on this stuff. I don't see all of the posts that George Takei has historically made (historically, I can barely say "historically" with these teeth)—that he's historically made about Patrick Stewart, I only see the ones from just recently. So, there's a time decay factor, it looks like between a week and a month, depending on which accounts you're following and what types of queries you're doing—at least that's what I'm seeing in my accounts. Being aware of that time decay means that if there's a topic that's very valuable, and you know you have a potential social audience to reach that's either following you on Google+ or connecting with you through email, that might mean that publishing on a regular basis—I might say "Hey, if ranking for consumer purchasing power is really important to me, maybe I want to put up a blog post every month or two about consumer purchasing power."
What's crazy is you don't need exact keyword matching. The post about Patrick Stewart here did not have exact keyword matching, so this is a very broad algorithm that's currently biasing to show these Google+ results. This is an incredibly powerful tool for search marketers and social marketers, and I think it's something that is going to get a lot more attention in the year to come.
With that, everyone, happy Halloween!
AH! Adventure time! Amazing (my kids too got crazy with your costumes).
Google+, indeed, is an essential tool for personalization of the SERPs (just thinks how much it may in ORM if used well).
I would add another way for subtly influencing the SERPs thanks to G+: offer people to login to your site with their G Profiles and, eventually, to comment using the Google Plus comments.
Gianluca - any plugins for WordPress you're aware of that do G+ comment streams? Would be nice to throw a little widget of code right below the facebook block :)
I will have to check out the URL, but I am aware at least of a plugin doing that.
I promise that asap I come back home, I update this comment with the link (today is holiday in Spain).
Said that, you can also use comment systems that give the option to log in with the Google profiles (apart other social sign in): Disqus is one them.
UPDATE:
Apart Google Plus Comment cited just here below, I would suggest also the Google+ Comments plugin by Alex Moss, who I personally know and trust in everything WordPress related.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-comments-widget/
I know mashable uses Livefyre for the commenting and it allows twitter, FB, or G+ credentials that tie back to your account.
https://web.livefyre.com/
If you find a good one Ari, let me know please. I'm using disqus for comments at the moment, but want to experiment on the virality (is that a word?) if using G+ comments rather than Disqus - but hopefully without re-opening up a site/blog to spammy comments again. Thanks!
Here is a plugin, that's works better. Also they give the instruction how to install it.
https://peadig.com/wordpress-plugins/google-comments-box/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-plus-comments/
I really like Comments Evolved. Does G+, Facebook, Disqus, WP, and more. I use G+ and FB on my own site and it does really well.
Ari beat me to it! This is a great idea to take a play from the Google playbook and make people use G to help boost you without knowing they are doing it!
Even with authorship gone now, the personalization aspect of G+ is as crucial as ever.
Wonderful post, Rand. VERY SCAAAARRRYYY!!! But wonderful ;-)
For those of us that have been observing Google+ for some time, none of this is a surprise. Your Google+ posts have had a powerful influence to your Google network since Search Plus Your World debuted in January 2012.
I've been tracking the behavior of a wide variety of my Google+ posts in non-personalized search for some time now, and I'm working up a YouMoz submission about my observations. I have a high-PageRank profile, so my posts tend to often do well in Google Search (even non-personalized) for longtail keywords that still have some good search volume.
One thing I've observed is that while it's true that most G+ posts decay over time, not all do. For example, logged out of Google search "google+ page analytics." That G+ post of mine has been in the top 3 for that keyword since February 6, 2012, about 20 months!
That's interesting, Mark. After only glazing over your last paragraph at first, I nearly replied making the point that other factors may simply be the case (e.g. not a competitive keyword, good use of keyword relevance in the post, etc.) - but completely aside from that, I see what you're getting at: with social often being time-sensitive (e.g. we share a post today about what we're doing/how we're feeling/what we're reading today), it's impressive that a standalone Google+ status update ranks so well after so long.
I'd be interested to know if Google would do the same with a Facebook status update or a tweet (the conspiracy theorist within me wants to say: "probably not!") ;-)
Can't that be caused also by the eventual authority gained by your post during time (links)?
That's what I was thinking. I was also thinking that as you post more content, the link juice would reduce (as it's bumped down your timeline), unless the links acquired are direct to the post. Correct me if I'm wrong; I'm just getting started with Google+ (slow, I know).
Indeed a great post by Rand (after a long long time). That's the Rand I used to follow :) will keep following, if see such posts in future as well. Though wrote about known things but at least something new (as I always expect from Rand)
+++++1 (y)
he he he he :)
someone who isnt sayin "awsome post" on each post just for the points :)
and he earned thumbs up - amazing comment x)
Interesting post Rand. Google plus certainly has become an important tool for marketers. It has influenced rankings (may be due to personalization factor) over the time. It's good to find the stuff which is more related to you. But your log in session sometimes bounds you from finding some new source as it will show you results that are influenced by personalization. If Google plus is there, which you can use as a search engine as well for the information you are looking for in your network, then Google search should be able to provide which was not there in G+ but still useful (without signing out of your Google account).
Otherwise, G+ thing is a great marketing tool to connect and share and build relationships in your community.
Hello Mr. Fishkin!
You have really interesting posts! I have another question about the use of google plus. Every day I use the google plus page of my business (web). Last months I was in the first positions for the keywords real estate + area. But two weeks ago, my positions in google decreased progressively to the lasts positions in the first google page for this keywords... So, its possible that google change this factor and now the use of google plus haven't any effect or a low effect in the positions?
Thank you again! ;)
Regards
I think that the links in posts in google plus the links are still do-follow
Thank you Rand for pointing out that "over sharing" can be an issue. In Google's Agent Rank continuation patent in 2011**, they talked about having your shared items having "consistently strong endorsements" from a set seed of agents. If you are just sharing tons of stuff and no one is +1 or sharing it then you will loose a little credibility. I think of +1 and shares like links. If you have a really strong endorser like Rand sharing your stuff then it is more weighted then having a random Google Plus users sharing your stuff 1,000 times. AgentRank may very well be the social equivalent to PageRank. Quantity may not be as important as quality. For the record I'm not saying that AgentRank has rolled out, I'm just saying that Google may be conducting some testing around it.
**
"[0034] In an alternative implementation, a seed group of trusted agents can be pre-selected, and the agents within this seed group can endorse other content. Agents whose content receives consistently strong endorsements can gain reputation. In either implementation, the agent's reputation ultimately depends on the quality of the content which they sign."
https://appft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220110213770%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20110213770&RS=DN/20110213770
Very interesting point about what you refer to as AgentRank, I would call it domain authority instead. Which technically is the same thing to me. Based by the publisher/author. Just finishing up an article about Google+ authorship so this really was a useful post to come across, thanks Rand. The part about over publishing was something else I just recently learned. Was posting the same content on all the social networks which I realized was an overkill. Started to spread the content out which seemed to drive in more traffic.
Google+ will help you to improve your social presence or brand popularity but it will help in ranking.. i do not think so , because Matt cutt has already discussed about this topic.
The small business owner in me says it is the best way to connect with like minds in my industry and it works well this wonderful G+ SM....connection, sharing and learning is the best thing on this medium. Interesting on the decay thing and will need to check this out...many thanks!
Decay is important in every Social Media algorithm. For instance, it is one of three main factors of the Facebook Edgerank.
Totally agree with you Gianluca. In fact time decay factor is one among the three which plays a vital role in determining the decay. However I was just wondering Gianluca that if you are still considering edge rank factor, the reason being way back in August there were news that Facebook has discontinued with the Edgerank factor.
Although as far as I believe FB never officially came out with this just kept a mum regarding it's use, the way Google is currently doing with it's Page rank but then there was a widespread mourning for the death of Edgerank. What do you say?
Great post, Rand! I've been preaching the Google bias for years, but your matter-of-fact insight on the current SEO implications is very much appreciated!
FAN. TAS. TIC! Yet another extremely specific breakdown as to why brands and influencers need to be active on Google+. What a fantastic rebuttal to clients demanding to see ranking data.
P.S. - Love that they kept the video edit in there! A good laugh.
nice update on the topic. have always wondered about people who use gmail but not G+ and were influenced by gmail contacts that do use G+, glad to see it mentioned. would love to see more on that as well.
Sounds like Google results are getting interesting again.
Its always nice when I can reference a Pro SEO whose findings further support my position on such matters. Case in point. A personal injury attorney from Ohio recently posted into the Stream with "How long does it take to settle my personal injury claim" that I came across 40 minutes after he posted it to Google+
Because I already had him in a Google+ Circle, his post showed up #2 SERP in my personal search results. Come to find out by watching this edition of WBF, having Tony in a Circle helps, but NOT necessary, so long as other people I've circled on Google+ have shared his content. I think this is pretty significant and hope Google continues to "show preference" to those Google+ profiles of consequence.
Played around with this a bit and am blown away with how fast G+ posts are indexed. I had David Mihm post something on G+ and it was in the SERP in 7 seconds. Wow!
Great reference @Tim . Thank you.
Hi Rand, great fun. I knew about the Google+ benefit. Few days ago i read a good post about the benefit of Google+ sharing in search engine ranking. But few days later i read a post in moz.com that it is not true. Google + has not such effect in SERP. From then i was confused and stop working in Google plus. i was really looking for you what is you view. This video cleared all my doubts. I don't want to mention the post or author that said g+ not so effective. The guy actually sited few examples and data to justify his claim. That is why i was confused. Thank a lot.
Nice info Rand.
I would also like to say that google has a great way to promote its products. just like here people would start using google+ more and more to get on the rankings. Its like a small mandate to use google + if you want to get ranked.
Google knows power of its search engine so its cross selling google+ - Nice marketing strategy, which we all can learn :-)
Great costume and post! Has Google ever actually acknowledged a Google+ bias? I've only ever seen them deny it, but posts like this (and personal experience) seem to indicate that the bias definitely exists. Of course, whether they admit to its existence or not, we can use it to our advantage :)
I could literally watch the first 30 seconds of this on an endless loop... So funny!
There is no rank improvement in SERP if I believe Matt Cutt ( https://tinyurl.com/p3fejss , https://tinyurl.com/pkfxzk2
But Cyrus Shepard( https://moz.com/community/users/155620) said after his long research it does, https://moz.com/blog/google-plus-correlations
But one thing which nobody can denies, G+ boost your CTR dramatically. And that is good enough and strong reason for me to use it.
Good Look (the Vampire), great post specially the Gmail Part since I had never thought about it.
I believe someday Google plus will rule over Social media not because of its User friendliness but because of its google friendliness.
Yes I can see it’s a good method of ranking, but google is biased today we can’t rely on it as things may change tomorrow.
Really interesting topic. We've been focusing on pushing forward keywords such as 'Web Design Cheshire' or 'Web Design Chester' and we've noticed a dramatic increase when we've focused content on Google+ and within communities.
Though, sometimes on Google search results we're receiving a message of 'You and _ Others +1 this' although the count doesn't tally with our +1 counter at all. Does anyone know where this comes from?
[links removed by editor]
Spotted a typo Rand! It's "discretion", not "disgression" :)
I am sure we can blame the fangs and let this one slide... :)
Great post Rand! Has there been any research into the correlation specifically between the gmail and rankings? I would be interested to see that correlation isolated from Google Plus.
I'll bet Google will eventually take down the wall between G+ and Gmail completely, but I'd think today Google still treats them fairly differently.
Great and amusing whiteboard post!
Taking your conclusions lightly is quite hard for me though.
When I try to look hard to the future of search results personalization I can see clearly that the default of all browsers' home tab will be the incognito tab..
I am wondering if its possible that Google will force us to overuse Google plus and then punish us for that…
Thanks for this info. Now this is going to be the reason for me to use more google+.
Great Post. I started tinkering with Google+ personalized search a several days ago at the office and have seen experienced some phenomenal results. I like the fact that unless Google stops passing link juice then posts to Google+ that are shared and linked to by authoritative audience end up being just about the same as obtaining a high value editorial link but for 1/10 of the work.
Hi all,
I am sorry for the seemingly silly question but there is a part on the video, around 4:15, where Rand mentions that the results from G+ posts etc may appear in search if you have even made email (Gmail I assume) contact with someone more than a few times.
My question to that is; would similar rules apply if you set up an external email within Gmail and liaised with people/customers this way, rather than using a Gmail specific email address?
I stumbled upon this a little 3 year late, but Is this still relevant? :)
I like this method for Google+ Authorship. I use it on my site Twist Writer .
[link removed by editor]
We love it.
Some top stuff here to take away and play with.
And lets face it, Google+ was always going to have an affect on rankings - no way Google would have all that data and not use it :0)
Yeah even I recognized the same but never rules to implement this as SEO technique thanks for releasing.
When I am logged in to google+ or gmail & search for my name on a search engine I can see a banner of me on the right hand side which is being fetched from Google+ account and shows up all the recent posts that I have shared or post on G+. Similarly when I searched for the company where I work, it first shows the company results and then the places where I have commented and given a link to.
And what are implications of this on an e-commerce website? Would +1's for a product cause that product to be show higher in the rankings similar like a blog post would?
This is not a surprise if you look into posts from Matt Cutts mentioning that Google is investing a lot of its resources in +1. This is just a beginning. There are more to come to +1 effect. Maybe after the Glass introduction, +1 will be a hit to mass crowd. Anyway, it's good to get our base strong with more quality followings or networks.
And what are the implications of this on an e-commerce website? Would +1's help products rank higher similiar to how to how blog posts would?
As a SEO man in Israel, I can tell you for sure that not every country is working that nice with Google+, which means we still waiting for it to catch on :)
Will let you know when it will be intresting ..
Is searching G+, something thats been happening a while? https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html
Or is this different?
Perfect! This is the best explanation of how much effective this is to get a good SERP.
I'd be interested in seeing a WBF about the "broad" algorithm Google is using to push G+ posts higher in the SERP.
Great stuff Rand. As a fan of G+ I'm feeling a little more vindicated now!
Great post, Google+ is getting popularity in today or future currently they rolled out more custom Url for active users on Google+ to attract more users on this social website. I also got mine too plus.google.com/+alokgangrade it is easy and unique than previous one.
Rand - I reaaly like your WBF post, but I have one question in mind. How do we track logged in users? just as u mentioned whenever users are logged in Google shows where the users have liked or have shared some link on Google plus. Moreover you must be aware that when users log in to search, for security purposes there is a not provided tab in Google Analytics. Please explain this phenomenon to me. Thank you.
Hello Azeem,
I think you have missed a precious post at Moz
https://moz.com/blog/decoding-googles-referral-string-or-how-i-survived-secure-search.
I am not sure if it still works as it's a bit old post and I have tried it months back even before this post but you can give it a shot anyways.
Look there are other ways too to track the not provided data. And I have tried them as well but you know it's an uphill task and at last it's more like probability mathematics and never ending excel sheets . If you are really serious about tracking every single user I think may be you can go for a web server log based tool rather than depending completely on tag based tool like Analytic.
Hi suggest you to give a look to the deck Craig Bradford presented at Searchlove just few days ago.
In that deck you will find your answer.
Really interesting post Rand, and very timely.
Earlier this week I attended a conference and a guy (Performance Marketing Insights, London the guy was from Bronco.co.uk) who said that social didn't effect search at all, and went on to prove it. Having watched this, it seems that a large number of SEO-ers try and ignore personalisation, and simply look at query results. These days, so many people are signed in when searching it's clearly having a much bigger effect than we give it credit for.
I'd never really thought about how much of an effect this could have even if users don't actually interact with a post, time to go and put some effort into Google+!
Nice post! Indeed scary how Google involves gmail in search. However this post is a great stimulus for me to gather some audience and build up some authority on Google+. In the Netherlands google+ is becoming more popular, but is far from mainstream. But I think it will gain some popularity over time, because of ranking advantages. Google hang outs by the way makes it also attractive!
Google adopted a very nice strategy to lure users to use its product more.... people who just neglected it will use it throughly....
Herman,
Same problem right here in the Netherlands. Allthough I must say, I started using Google+ for some of my projects as soon as it could and since then only 10 or 20 people (in maybe even 2 years of time) added me to their circles or visa versa. So even with Google+ becoming more important to ranking in personalized you're still at the mercy of those who have to include you in their circle. Experienced this too?
Rand, great video, nice teeth and awesome hair....:D
...the implications are that more discrete email and hyper retargeting opportunities of your database to gmail suffix holders means you can entice people to your G+ page and extend your G+ brand power/search reach by doing carrot type marketing to them and less stick. (you see that, I didn't mention the i marketing word just there which is really scary to polemicists).
Hello Rand,
Happy Halloween to you and the entire Moz Team.
Praveen I agree with your point. Look it's quite right that once you are logged in, the moment you do that the cookies and Google personalization factors come into play.
As a matter of fact it might happen that even if a page is not ranking at all when you are not logged in, it might appear on top if you are logged in depending upon the frequency you check that page. So Rand I would rather say your concept is great but than Google has to come up with some solution for getting too personalized results when you are logged in. A much better option is to go for Facebook "likes, shares and follow". It really works. I think Google still has to do a lot to make it's +1 at par with the Facebook social signals. Anyways I truly appreciate your post and will be waiting for your new one.
I was wondering why don't any one of you come up with a social media blog. I mean there's much we can discuss about them as well. And what else can be a better platform than Moz.com?.
Actually Google tries to moderate the effect of an extreme personalization of the Serps.
If you read my post here on Moz about SEO and Personalized Search, you will see how Google relies on a probability score, a value that is assigned to search entities, in order to present also new but related content that has a relation to the ones that the users already have plussed one or that have been plussed one by people in their Circles.
This was #awesomness all around and yes it was old and basic, but it was awesome. The question of 2014 will be how can brands engage with audiences and get them to circle! It's the easiest button in SEO sense links and I think easier and more acurate than links signals! Good work even with the fangs boss!
I realise that sometimes people seem desperate to link G+ to an online marketing benefit and this reduces the signal when something interesting is pointed out. This method which Rand has pointed out is a very interesting one, although it goes against the open ethos of the Internet, in other words you have to sup from the cup of Google and have others do the same for it to work.
But is that such a bad thing.
The internet more and more controlled by a few companies, perhaps it is time to gather the tribe under the watchful eye of Google.
I confess I have been using this method myself, and a variation of this method that is to only link out to results which are listed as following me.
It's amazing how influential a tasty link can be.
Google+ must have tool. Excellent post @rand.
First - great teeth and for me it was a lot easier to understand - cause u tried to speak clearly and english is not my first language - keep the teeth :)
Second - Great start into a friday - I didn't knew that gmail excanging mails also helps to get shown up on the mail receiver.
And right - we have to be carefull with postings and shares - and these shares need value - time for a WBF how to make a good share / post on Google Plus :)
belated Happy Halloween - here :)
Google+ is the present (and future) and not getting into it could be your biggest search and social media marketing mistake. This video just proves that even further and that's perhaps why I sounded like a G+ paid advocate during a recent local SEO / SMM conference here in the Philippines. If any of you are interested you can find the post here.
Interesting...after the hummingbird update the SERPs results are refreshed to show biased results in a very broad way..either it's Google+ or first stage "buying cycle" queries, results are leading to webpages which don't have exact information on the landing pages. Even though it's quite clear that you cannot miss to utilize the potential of G+..
Actually Hummingbird does not play a role in the Google+ presence in the SERPs, but the personalization layer, which sees Google+ as a major factor since Search Plus Your World, now transformed in My Answers.
Rand,
I noticed this about 1 year ago when I was searching for topics for a blog and my friends blogs kept coming up #1 because he had written on the topic. Same thing I was logged into my Google Account, and I was friends with him on Google + and we have exchanged many emails over the years.
So this hasn't been in place for just the last few weeks, but for a while now. It may, however, becoming more influential in search results as Google is learning how to let G+ influence their SERPs while controlling spam at the same time.
I'd like to take this a step further. Right now I'm in the midst of testing a few things, because I wrote a post a few months back on keyword research that was +1 by Larry Kim and it showed up very high in search results (logged in or out) and was beating sites with much greater link DR and PR. So Influencers do have a pretty dramatic effect on search results as well (even if you are logged out). So What I am currently testing is if that can be used as a way to promote content as effectively as link building does.
Are these based purely off connections with user profiles? Or...Is there a similar effect with G+ brand pages too?
Great stuff Rand! We all knew that Google+ would be important for search rankings and why people should be leveraging the power of Google+ more! GREAT WBF
I have one question, if you recieve email from people with google plus but that has not circle you. It is needed for you to answer that email in order to have the signal that you speak on this post. Or is needed for you to answer that email?
Another amazing, groundbreaking video/post from Moz promoting Google+. If you use G+, you are awesome and people will always see your amazing content that you produce and it will always give your website a huge boost in search results. Oh wait, no it won't. And Google results are always right, like this result:
https://thebiglead.com/2013/10/28/st-louis-cardinals-are-a-gay-butt-sex-team-according-to-google/
From fake Matt Cutts Twitter: Google+ is like a gym membership. Everyone signs up for it but never uses it.
For once, Rand's hair isn't perfect.
Thanks for the useful tips, Rand. We just received emails from Google about getting our G+ vanity URL, so that was pretty coincidental considering your WBF topic. Securing our URL at google.com/+WhiteboardCreations is now set in stone!
Great stuff Rand, thanks. Even more reason to continue to utilize G+ if you have a broad network of connections. I'm glad you pointed out not only the decay issue but also the issue of over sharing. I feel like many would see that it works and go crazy with it, when really using moderation would end up being more effective.
I asked this question on G+, but I'll re-ask it here.
Suppose I have a 1000 word blog post. Normally we'd post in on our Wordpress-powered blog that's a subdomain (blog.mystore.com/NewPost). On occasion, we'll create a page on the main site for this (i.e., www.mystore.com/NewPost)
But more recently, we've been posting more content on G+, and linking to it from the blog (and T, FB, etc.).
What is the thinking now? Should we still post on our "money" site, and use G+ to drive traffic to it via teaser posts on G+? Or vice versa?
I would never use a third party platform as the place where to post my main content.
Instead I would use Google+ as a curation tool, where presenting in-depth opinions about mine and especially others' content related to my business, which is a content that not necessarily I would publish on my blog.
Google+ is especially good for intelligent curation.
Obviously, I would present my posts on G+ too, but more as an in-depth presentation able to move people from G+ to my site... where they can plus one the post or comment using they Google profiles.
I couldn't stop laughing, great information. Google+ is becoming a marketers playground!
Wondering if there is a danger of connecting a website (authorship) and not participating much on G+? Will there be an impact on the website's ranking? Would it be best to advise our clients to not connect via authorship if they have no intention of ever using G+?
I can tell you this I did a google plus circle share 3 days ago I put my clients in it and it has 450 plus'a and 350 reshares 350 comments my account gained 3,000 followers in 3 days my clients also. I do 1 a week and in a short time have 40,000 followers every blog article I write gets 3000 to 8000 views right away from author rank and google plus take a look for yourself! If you want in just let me know! it is awesome! SEO implications are huge I ran every site on here and plus links number 1
https://plus.google.com/113204619907190737614/posts/WB2GahzMxTr
Great info Rand. I have noticed this effect for quite some time now and its really helpfull. The problem is when cycles arent that big or the staff im "talking" about on a site adressed only for some people (greek community in my case).
Do you have any tips about getting for followers?
yes,"google plus has bias on post from who you're following" is not new find.the effect has been talked.
A tip is that you post topics that are attractive or informative, then you will get followers.
I knew using G+ has benefit in better serps! That's logical, but I've also heard: "no, that's impossible";)
Now it's time to rank highier with this...
Another good one Rand, I always look forward to white board fridays!
I think this is way of Google to beating Facebook.com by Google+. Social Network.
Thanks Rand Sir
"Gmail is another way to get this same sort of bias. You can see it in there if you're logged into your Gmail account, and you can see "Hey, I'm not following this person on Google+. Oh, we've exchanged emails, so they're showing me these results higher that they've +1'd."
So would using a gmail acct to interact with customers provide a bigger benefit than using a company website based email? Is the lesser credible looking email address to big an issue?
Yeah, its true Gplus have lots of value, but I can't understand why you talk about this old stuff :(
Old?
LOL thumbs down again :)
old in the sense of ranking factor, at the time of Gplus launch we were seeing personal searches and circle activities in SERP.
Couldn't stop myself to comment before watching the video. Nice video still :)
One more good reason to use Google +. Nice post rand.
would be a good reason if someelse uses it - in germany its not that great in use :(
used by seo's webdesigners and developpers - but they may not be the target...