No doubt about it, Google Plus has some very useful features and could will impact Google search results.
I’ve seen multiple reports highlighting the growth of Google Plus, but I can’t help but think to myself that the numbers just don’t feel right.
There’s a big difference between have X number of users, and X number of active users. And it feels like Google has placed Plus in enough locations that people have, at least once, gone to check it out and maybe even created a profile.
I recently opted to do a very unscientific survey. To start, I put the following message on both Facebook and Google Plus,
“Consider this to be a Facebook vs. Google+ case study. If you are reading this, leave a comment or click “like.” I’m doing a comparison of the two networks to highlight user activity.”
I have 818 “friends” on Facebook and am in 210 people’s circles on Google Plus, and while that isn’t even, the results painted a contrasting picture.
Within 2 hours of making that post, 22 people had clicked “Like” on Facebook and four others left a comment. On Google Plus, one person left a comment.
Again, not the least bit scientific, but it shows Google Plus is much less active.
To take things a bit farther, I looked at 100 people’s profiles that I have in various circles on Plus to see just how active they are on the network. 100 isn’t exactly a huge sample-size, but the group was pulled at random and was made up of a broad range of people.
Here’s some of the data I learned:
- 54 have not posted in 2012 (if at all)
- 46 have made a public post (most people seem to go this route) in 2012
- Of those 46, 23 haven’t posted since January
- 9 haven’t posted since July of 2011
- 2 haven’t posted since August 2011
- 6 haven’t posted since September 2011
- 2 haven’t posted since October 2011
- 6 haven’t posted since November 2011
- 9 haven’t posted since December 2011
- 20 people have never posted
- 44% of the people that have made a post haven’t done so in 2012
- 27% of the people that have made a post have done so in February of 2012
While this wasn’t a huge sample-size, the data provides a pretty interesting look at user activity on Plus. Now, by all means people could be simply using the site to comment on other people’s posts, but I think that might be a bit of a stretch.
You should continue to test Google Plus and know that it will impact search results, but also know that “users” doesn’t exactly mean “active users.”
Note: these numbers are only based on the 100 person sample-size I used.
