Several months ago I ran some tests on the impact of Facebook Likes on Google Rankings. After receiving several e-mails and tweets asking whether Google +1s have any impact on rankings, I decided to run some similar experiments in order to give a more conclusive answer.
Note: on September 19th I’m going to be presenting a few insights on social SEO at Social Media Marketing and Monitoring 2011 London. If you’re interested in learning more about Google +1s and how to harness the benefits of social signals, come and visit! I’ve included discount codes and links to the conference tickets at the bottom of this post.
I began my Google +1 experiment by taking 35 URLs across six unique domains with various traits: a mixture of indexed/unindexed, had links/no links, home pages/deep pages, had social signals/no social signals etc. All of these domains had experienced no significant changes in rankings for a while, i.e. the main keywords that I was tracking had not moved for a fair amount of time and there was very little other activity being done on them.
I then requested some +1s from a variety of different groups of people and monitored the log files, rankings, Google Analytics, and Webmaster Tools’ Google +1 section to spot any interesting trends.
Results:
| Type of page | Indexed? | # of +1s | # of links (internal / external) | Ranking observation | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| URL 1 | Deep Page | No | 20 | 0 / 0 | No change |
| URL 2 | Home Page | Yes | 26 | 12 / 1,136 | No change |
| URL 3 | Deep Page | Yes | 20 | 595 / 0 | Ranking increased |
| URL 4 | Home Page | Yes | 26 | 0 / 3 | Ranking increased |
| URL 5 | Deep Page | Yes | 28 | 307 / 30 | Ranking increased |
| URL 6 | Deep Pages | Yes | 30 over 30 pages | N/A | Rankings increased |
Analysis:
Although it has only been one week since starting the test, and the sample size (35 URLs across six domains) is not at all statistically significant enough to make any rash conclusions, my general observation is that +1s from genuine Google+ users do improve rankings. However, in the case of URL 1, which was the only URL that was not indexed, the +1s had no impact on getting it indexed.
The scale of some of the ranking increases was also very varied: one of the URLs increased the ranking for a targeted keyword from 75 up to 27 in Google UK. Another Keyword increased from 42 to 18, and another increased from 8 to 6.
Google+1s Impact on Traffic
Here is a Google Analytics screenshot for URL 6 (the domain where +1s were spread across 30 URLs). As you can see, after relatively stable traffic there does appear to be a slight overall increase in traffic – although it’s hard to say whether this is was caused by the +1s or if it is just correlation. Either way, it hasn’t smashed the site’s traffic, but it is a noticeable increase (from ~185 visits a day to ~225).
If you want to learn more about this experiment and how to harness the power of social & personalised search, I am going to be speaking at Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 London on September 19th. Tickets are available now and you can get a 10% discount by using the following discount code: SPKR10.
Can’t argue with the stats. Thats interesting as an SEOmoz study found a quick rise in rankings that dipped almost straight away, so I’m glad to see a longer term result for you guys.
The +1 looks to me like +$1 …..We all know that Matt Cutts actually told that +1 will affect the rankings, but I am not sure how this will improve the relevancy.
Nice experiment! I’m impatient to see the long-term effect on this one :) Will you post more info after a month-two-three?
Aug 11 -13 = Global Panda area, so you’ve got an issue with your sample time period unfortunately which will throw your data into doubt..
Nice article! We definitely need someone to do a bigger scale test on this exact topic to see if we can get some statistically significant results.
Also consider this Wired article dealing with +1 as a ranking signal:
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/08/google-studying-re-ranking-search-results-using-1-button-data-but-its-touchy/
Really an in-depth experiment and it is jaw dropping.
My Question
1, What will happen(SERP position) if we Google plus the “page” from the same IP by using different real Google Users?
2, How we are saying that is targeted Keyword?
For ex: If i Google Plus the URL-http://hshhabhfsa.bsb for the Keyword “XXXXX” then the same URL-http://hshhabhfsa.bsb tentatively increase for the keyword “XXXXX YYYYYY” IS that rite?
Waiting for your reply :)
How do you see the services that sell +1 s? Will google manage to stop this practice?
Anyone has the link about Matt Cutts tells Google +1 button does influence seo ranking?
Thanks for sharing this article will without doubt be looking into Google plus ones for our site now!
This is very interesting, we have just started asking our candidates to +1 and will be very interested to see whether we start to see an increase in rankings. It certainly seems from your research that it is a ranking factor. Excellent article, cheers.
I would be very interested to this experiment re-done in it’s entirety now that G+ is a bit more established, and a few more algorithm changes have taken place.
I have certainly noticed pages being indexed much more quickly if they have been shared on G+ however, while a +1 changes personalised results I have yet to be convinced it alters normal SERP results.
That being said I don’t really have the time to run an experiment of any real value so all my information is gleaned from anecdotal information and other peoples opinions on the subject.