Is Google + really being quietly shut down? What does this mean for SEO?
-
I've recently seen & read more and more articles about Google +'s imminent shut down. How likely is that to happen and how will this affect Google Pages for Business, and overall SEO strategies? Like this article right here.
-
Here's a recent article on the subject: http://marketingland.com/googles-horowitz-no-google-plus-is-not-dead-130328
I think the whole 'authorship' and 'publisher' G+ features; linking real entities (people & organisations) to content, as a way of verifying & qualifying the content as being good quality & from a reputable source must be pretty helpful for Google so i would personally be surprised if they did away with those aspects of G+.
I know they have scaled back some aspects of 'authorship' such as removing the authors image in the SERPS but that could just be due to needing to reduce the 'computational budget/bandwidth' they allocate to it.
-
Hi Rocio!
Good topic, and while nobody can provide a definitive answer to your question at this point (except maybe someone from Google!), my take on this is that Google could be:
-
Regretting that they tied Google+ to other products and is now untying it.
-
In the early stages of preparing for some kind of major change.
It could be both of these things or neither of them. I do not see Google's local product going away any time soon, and in fact, Google just announced that they want people logging into their Google My Business dashboard to signal to Google that their pages are still active ... so I believe the local portion of this is still a cornerstone of Google's big plan. But the social side ... it's having growing pains, I think. Not sure what's up, but it certainly is worthy of thought and discussion.
-
-
Google created a monster when they moved Google Places to Google+ whatever-it's-called-today. It truly went from (not so) bad to worse. Besides the SEO trick that John Cross mentioned above, Google+ is a confusing mess. This is the first I heard about Google+ going the way of Internet Explorer, but if it's true, what are they replacing it with?
-
A few more links about this, that i was able to dig out:
http://live.theverge.com/sundar-pichai-google-mwc-2015/
and the full thing:
http://www.mobileworldlive.com/mwl-extra-sundar-pichai-svp-of-products-at-google
-
Rocio
It has been talked about for a while. I am not sure google can entirely I assume a pivot seems more in order see attached article. Appears consistent with the one you linked through to.
http://www.itpro.co.uk/strategy/24146/are-the-curtains-closing-on-google
I like google+ because of it high impact on SEO for not much extra work, and many companies do not use it. A little trick disappearing.
-
There seem to be other post floating around to the same effect.
I predicted its death a year or two ago. It's always been intrusive, hard to use, and just looks plain terrible.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Radius Size around GMB location for google local search
We are a digital marketing agency Our clients are (virtually all) retail automotive dealerships. We compete in various market places coast to coast (USA). Since Google puts retail automotive dealerships under Local SEO umbrella, is it known ( published ) how large is the radius around my client's Google My Business rooftop's address? How wide is their search 'reach' according to Google? Asked another way, in a triangular, three SEO geo area, with one city being at the epicenter of the population dispersion, and my client, versus my client's competitors being different distances from where the majority of the population emanates from, all other SERP factors being equal (assumption) between the two competitors, how far is each clients REACH from a Local Search standpoint. Is this known? Published by Google. ONE example: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/BMW+of+South+Albany,+U.S.+9W,+Glenmont,+NY/42.7662693,-73.8138088/@42.6727121,-73.7993527,12z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x89dde0fe8829c405:0xd915fb9b3b60bf33!2m2!1d-73.7973301!2d42.589211!1m0!3e0
Local Listings | | GaryT_SEO1 -
Google Knowledge Graph Carousel
Hi - I am trying to get on the Google Knowledge Graph Carousel. I've set up G+, YouTube, Consistent NAP, local business schema, etc. but still have not been featured. Can you please help me figure out why I cannot get a carousel feature. Please help me determine what I am missing.
Local Listings | | mmmeans0 -
How do you do Local SEO in a small town?
Good afternoon everyone! I wanted to start a discourse on a subject that I think might benefit a few select readers. What would be your best plan-of-action to successfully propose and execute a Local-SEO campaign for a small, local business in a rural town? The type of town that has next to zero local directories, the type of business that has hardly any (if any at all) "fresh mentions" on the internet, etc. I'm interested to see how other SEOs would handle tackling this kind of campaign. Can't wait to hear what people have to say!
Local Listings | | TaylorRHawkins
Thanks!
Taylor1 -
Local SEO business name issue due to aggregator
So I work for a college and we have multiple locations. My tactic has been always to keep the name the same for all of them (no city name), and then change the address and phone number for each. But there is 1000s of college listings websites out there that aggregate college and school data from the same source: the US government. Now the way that they have most, if not all, multi-location colleges listed is: "college name-city name". I can see the value in that, but I guess I'm just wondering what to do since it obviously can't be changed. Should I revert all of our listings as "college name-city name" to match the 1000s of listings that have it that way? I've been under the impression that I should leave the city/town name out of the name, but I'm just wondering what you think best practices would be? Thanks
Local Listings | | TomBinga1125
Tom0 -
"state" abbreviation in Google My Business for Irish/UK locations
Hi guys I have a question about one of the required bulk upload fields for Google My Business Locations: "State". We are covering Ireland and the UK and we don't have states, more provinces and counties. Any ideas what to enter in to this field? For example, for a shop in Dublin Ireland should it be Dublin (the county) Leinster (the provence) for the "State" field? And how are these abbreviated? Should I just enter IE or GB for all entries in the state field?
Local Listings | | AdiRste0 -
Heads up on new Google Local Guidelines
Good Morning All! I'm starting this thread just as a heads-up to all of the super folks in our community who live and breathe Local that Google has just launched one of the bigger overhauls of their quality guidelines that I've seen in some time. I want to be sure no one in our community misses this. Check out: https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038177?hl=en Not only has the title and style of the page undergone a revamp, but don't miss these changes: Google abandons the use of descriptors. Now you see 'em, now you don't. I have to say, I knew from day one that these were not going to last and thought they were a terrible feature for maintaining NAP consistency. Significant tweaks to Google's explanation of choosing categories, including requiring the use of unique categories for different departments. I thought this was interesting because category differentiation has long been a Local SEO tip for reducing the risk of merging. Now, this practice is a guideline. New guidelines for naming practice/practitioner listings ...and a whole lot more! Mike Blumenthal has posted a good little post on the guideline update here: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/12/01/google-rolls-out-major-update-to-google-my-business-guidelines/ If you have a minute, check out the changes today, as you may discover you need to make some edits to your Google+ Local pages to be guideline-compliant.
Local Listings | | MiriamEllis4 -
How to get listed on Google My Business without any physical location ..?
I want to know the process to get listing on Google my business. I have a website, domain email ID, address all information, but Google is asking for Storefront photo. So, please suggestion me the process to get listing on Google Local Business without any storefront. Thank you.
Local Listings | | 1akal0 -
Google vs. Google+ Local Rankings - How do they relate
I have a client who ranks #7 in Google+ Local for search term dentist Oxnard CA & Oxnard CA Dentist but for regular Google search results, they are not in the top 50. How is this possible? No penalties in Webmaster tools. I've been working on this client for over a year. All of the other pages on the website are ranking very well but the all elusive dentist Oxnard CA position is 0 How does regular Google search results relate to Google+ Local?
Local Listings | | Czubmeister0