G+: Growing Size, Weak Traffic (Even for Posts About G+!)

Google+ is purportedly growing in user size, but at least from this blog's perspective, I'm not seeing those numbers translate into traffic -- even for posts about Google+! For example, above is the social media traffic generated by my late January post about Google allowing some Google+ pseudonyms. The unexpected results:

I sent the link to people who've put me in their Google Circles, over 1400 folks, but only 19% of the total traffic came from the social network. (And that's only 10% more than traffic from Facebook.) More pageviews came via direct links sent through Instant Message, while 29% came from Plurk, another social network, where I have about 825 friends and fans. And again, this is for a post specifically about Google+. In general, traffic to New World Notes from Google+ is significantly smaller. Plurk, which has a much smaller userbase than Google+, let alone Twitter and Facebook, consistently brings more traffic. This is probably due to the high number of SLers on Plurk, but again, Plurk attracts high traffic for NWN posts that are not even about Second Life. For example, in yesterday's post about an estranged couple arguing over their unborn baby on Facebook, 31% of the traffic came from Facebook, while Plurk was still a close second, bringing 28% of the traffic.

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Comments

[shockwave yareach]

Google + is growing in size the same way that SL is adding a million new users a month. Sorry, but counting everyone who uses google as a google plus user is as guilty of padding the numbers as a politician carrying a suitcase of ballots with dead people's names.

And in the final analysis, when some auditor finally points out to the advertisers that the numbers are bogus, all trust in all things Google will disappear, and Google's fortunes will go right down the toilet. This will occur on all google properties, not just plus. The stain of corruption in Plus will not be viewed as a plus only issue, but a google issue. If they lie about this, what else do they lie about?