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
-
Question About Replying to Yelp Reviews and SEO
Hi guys, I was wondering if responding to negative yelp reviews would in turn boost yelps seo ranking for my business name. I'm trying to direct attention away from yelp being that we've had little success having real clients get through the review filter. We unfortunately have nasty competition that seems to be leaving fake negative reviews incessantly.
Local Listings | | Dsv2 -
How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps?
My core question is just: How do you fix a Google My Business Location Issue if the road doesn't yet exist on Google Maps? Do I have any other options other than to just wait on Google to catch up with reality? Here's the background: I work for a hospital. We just opened a clinic on a street that is real and has a U.S. Postal Address, but Google Maps doesn't recognize it, and redirects people to a house . This is our postal address: 8343 S 168th Ave Omaha NE 68136-1677 If a patient enters the following into google maps, 8343 S 168th Ave, the location the map autofills the wrong zip code, and sends them to a home that is on S 168th Ave. (where in theory a home would exist if it had that home number). The road does exist in that portion of town. If a patient enters 8343 S 168th Ave, Omaha NE 68136, google maps takes you to the correct location, but it automatically changes Ave to St. The verified Google My Business listing also lists it as Street, even though on the back end I've put in the word Avenue, and it shows up in the right place. If however someone just searches by name "Chalco Clinic" the right Google My Business comes up. This is the Google My Business page I'm referring to: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Nebraska+Medicine+-+Chalco/@41.1754796,-96.1787153,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xf77aefb4e27f865!8m2!3d41.1754796!4d-96.1787153 And even though it says it's on a Street, on the back end of the claimed listing I've used "Avenue". In case it matters, this is the landing page for the location: https://www.nebraskamed.com/chalco
Local Listings | | Patrick_at_Nebraska_Medicine0 -
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 -
Google Local Changes Randomly & Our Site Keeps Dropping Off Search
I work for a university where we have 2 law schools. We have our one school on the other side of the state that has been around for a very long time, and then a newer school that is right on our main campus that has been around for about 5 - 10 years now. The newer of the 2 schools is having so much trouble being able to claim the name of the school in google search. If you type in the name of the school the other school (the one that has been around longer) was coming up in the google local on the right of the screen and their web URL was never showing up in search. This is a huge problem because the accreditations of the 2 schools are different, and students are showing up at the wrong school for their interviews. Search will only show a domain name that used to be owned by the older school but now gives information for both of the schools. So it'll show up in search results, but only under that other domain and not their own domain that has their name in the domain name. This school has an updated google mybusiness listing, and a google+ page with the correct listing. I've added some schema data around the business address on their site and JSON for the google+ page, and have re-indexed their sitemap a few times after some changes have been made and we are using their name more in the site. This fixed everything for a short while and we were getting the appropriate google local listing and their site was appearing in search results above the site that advertised both schools. Now, after about 3 months, it has reverted. I had the older school showing up in the google local, and the site that advertises both schools is the ONLY domain appearing. I've re-indexed the site after finding out that Drupal's timestamps that they automatically add to sitemaps aren't optimized for how google reads it. This has gotten the local listing back, but I still have the wrong domain appearing, it is the one advertises both schools instead of the domain that has this school's information. I don't mind that the one advertising both shows up, but if a user is searching for that particular school I would really like to get that domain to appear first above the one advertising both schools and the older school. Right now the new school isn't even in search results except for being under the site that advertises both. I wasn't sure if this was something that Moz Local could help me fix by adding the listing across the web, or if there is something else on the sites I can be doing to help them solidify their name in google search/local. Also - is this subdomain that is advertising both of them hurting them or help them? I was thinking about taking that domain down to one page that acts as a direction source to the 2 domains rather than having a ton of information and keywords that take over the results for their name since that domain is older (and used to be associated with the old school only before the new school was built) Thank you for any advice on this issue as I'm still pretty new to SEO and to the university. Thanks again!
Local Listings | | amaray4030 -
How do I win the Google knowledge panel?
Hi everyone, so my company has a knowledge panel that show up for some keywords. I use to be #1 on the map (for my favorite keyword) when Google was showing several listings. Now that it show only one, it's not me anymore and I wonder why. So what are the SEO leverage I need to focus on to win this new google knowledge panel? Thank you very much.
Local Listings | | JimJ0 -
Hotel SEO / Rank Conundrum
Hello Mozzers, I am having an issue with a particular client and wanted to throw it out to the forum for feedback. We work with many resorts and hotels. One, in particular, is a large condo-hotel property with several individual buildings. Each building has a unique name. While the property management company owns and operates most of the units within each building, there are units that are individually owned. The property management company runs the branded resort website, all local pages & listings, etc. One savvy unit owner, however, has built a website that is branded with the individual building name for one of the buildings. He has also taken ownership of the building Google Plus page, Facebook page, etc. He only owns a handful of units in the building. We have retroactively tried creating a new site but are struggling to gain traction from a ranking perspective. We did temporarily change the website address that was listed for the Google local listing, via the "edit" button, and were actually starting to increase rank (presumably somewhat related to the increase in website traffic), but it was quickly fixed to the other website. The management company has reached out to the owner but he continues to refuse to give up any rights to the Google local page, etc. We have also created a new (technically duplicate) page just to see if we can knock the other one off, though we are having issues getting the verification post card from Google. Any advice on how we can gain access to this Google local page? Or any other tips on how to get a relatively small, new site to overtake an existing site? I know URLs / examples are helpful in these situations but we'd prefer to keep the client names anon.
Local Listings | | mbochic0 -
Clients are not showing up on Google Places (Maps)
Dear Esteemed Mozzers, I am having trouble with a few clients not showing up on the map for Google Maps (Places). What's interesting is that for one of my clients, a number of her competitors (some of them in the same office building) appear on the maps, however, my client does not. Nevertheless, this client is on G+, uses Yext, Yelp advertising, PPC with Google, etc. and as far as I'm concerned, has signed up for every other 'local' listing service of value. With that, I'm hoping you guys may be able to point me in the right direction to get my clients back on track and showing up on the Google Maps (Places) listings. Thank you all in advance for reading this, I look forward to your responses!
Local Listings | | maxcarnage0 -
SEO issues with Physician and Practice not ranking for their own names
I've inherited an SEO client who's got all kinds of ranking problems. Currently his name Dr. Laddis shows up for his old practice, Saratoga Cardiology Associates (http://saratogacardiology.com/) instead of his current one Cardiology Specialty Services (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ) He's also showing up with a G+ for the old practice that's listed as closed. The 2nd listing is for his bio on the hospital page.(<cite class="_Rm">https://saratogahospital.org/doctor/theodoros-laddis-md-facc/ )</cite> Then come the usual Dr directories. His YouTube channel shows up. But his actual website isn't until the middle of the 2nd page. I'm also having similar issues getting the practice to show up in search (http://cardiologyspecialtyservices.org/ ). As I was coming on board, they also had a name change from Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services to Cardiology Specialty Services. Their G+ local business page has the custom URL for Saratoga Cardiology Specialty Services but the name on the page is Cardiology Specialty Services. Their website is actually part of the hospital multisite with a URL redirect. While the site shows up for "cardiologist Saratoga" their G+ page doesn't show up.(https://plus.google.com/+Saratogacardiologyspecialtyservices/about ). I've also done on-page SEO and am still in the process of submitting to directories. Any thoughts on what the hangup is or what I can do to clear up this mess would be appreciated.
Local Listings | | IT-dmd0