Google plus one

[TheGrid]

Does having a lot of Google +1 adds really affect your ranking?

[HalogenDigital]

I don't think there is anyone who can tell you a straight up answer to this question, not without guessing at least. Whether +1 has any effect on standard results pages is not known, and to be honest is unlikely purely because it is so easy to manipulate.

What I can confirm from my own testing is that the real ranking benefit is one as a result of personalized search. For example, you +1 an article on example.com about bananas. The next time you search for bananas, that site is more likely to appear higher in the search results for you (and possibly friends of yours).

[Bristolweb]

This is true from what i have seen also, but its some what annoying as this type of system assumes that all websites are of  an editorial nature or reviewing  products etc.

What happened to every day business websites who are too busy running a business and don't really have time or a subject base to be writing articles.  they just have a website advertising their business services that dont really change and therefore have no real reason to change their website that often and are very unlikely to have people Google +1  votes for there services or their about page.

[TheGrid]

Social media as a variable annoys the %$#@ out of me honestly. Being a 12 year SEO vet I frequently think back to simpler times...

[MattJanaway]

I ran a test a few months back on social marketing...

I had an old domain with an old page which had no incoming (external) links and no on page optimisation... It ranked 58th in Google UK for the keyword I used in the content of an article which was posted on the page.

I grabbed a crappy Fiverr gig which added 50 Google +1's - two weeks later I was on page two.

I wrote an article on it with images etc but never uploaded it to my blog and now I cant find it

There is a small chance that other factors also helped it rank but I think its fair to say that the +1's certainly helped (in the very least!).

After seeing these SERP improvements I was happy with the results and deleted the page before finding out whether or not Google would have frowned upon the tactic - Im pretty sure that a page with no links coming into it which all of a sudden gets 50 +1's in a day looks pretty spammy to the big G!

[Klarke]

When something is +1'd, it usualy gets listed on the users public profile page - which is indexable.  Buying 50 1+'s in effect created 50 backlinks ..albeit from the same domain.

[MattJanaway]

I think it's pretty fair to say this method should not be used - however, if you gradually built 50 +1's over a month or two then this might not be too bad - AS LONG AS it was only a small part of your overall link building project.

[TheGrid]

VERY interesting

[TheGrid]

I'm going to try this on a throw away domain and report back. It is in a highly competitive industry, has a ton of "natural" paid and  article back links behind it with little ranking success in the past few years(was great in the early part of the aughts), this will prove whether or not g+ can tip the scales.....

[MattJanaway]

Cool plan... Why not take it a step further and do three tests:

One landing page with lots of retweets.

One landing page with lots of +1's.

One landing page with lots of "likes".

Could be interesting if it is on a throw away domain?

[TheGrid]

i like it. I could get those on fiverr 5 bucks each lol. While I'm at it you can have Jesus do a comedic greeting video card for your aunt!

[TheGrid]

Well, 150 plus ones and a few weeks later, this had NO affect on my ranking

[MattJanaway]

OK, couple of questions...

• Did the +1's come from genuine accounts? What should usually class as a genuine account is an aged account which has had interactions with other accounts, has its own circles, has friends, photos, status' etc?
• Does any other page on your site have any/many +'1? - It might look slightly suspect if you dont have any other page on the site which has any social shares but then one page pops up with 150.
• Are there any other social shares on the page? It would seem strange that something worthy of being "sharable" is only shared on one platform. It looks even more suspect if it is only shared on Googles platform - how ironic...
• Is the landing page optimized at all?

There are so many fiverr gigs where they literally sit there setting up accounts (all from the same IP!) on one PC. Then there are others who actually ask genuine accounts to click the +1

Great research here! I love seeing these kind of tests

[MattJanaway]

Oh, and how competition on the search term?

[TheGrid]

Matt,

Since it was a fiverr gig I just assume it is the lowest possible quality of plus ones so the test at the very least shows that IF it might work, you definitely can't fake it.

[TheGrid]

VERY high competition "Auto Loans", "Bad Credit Auto Loans"

[MattJanaway]

HAHA Yeah... Thats the problem with the fiverr gigs, you cant actually tell their methods properly.

One way to check is to have a look at the profiles who +1 your page and see if they are real. If you can notice that they are fake then you can bet your bottom dollar that big G can too.

Nice test though, I like it!