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Google Plus – A journey!

9 November 2018 Dhruthi Ponugupati

The recent news regarding the closure of Google plus was taken by storm in the digital and multimedia space. A lot of articles, speculations and questions were raised on why, how and what next if not for Google Plus? However, being one of the best digital marketing agency in Hyderabad, the queries and concerns raised in our team were thought-provoking.

  • -Will it affect the search results?
  • -Will it jeopardize the ad performance?
  • -If Google plus is being taken down, then what is the alternative platform?

And many such other queries were raised among the team of digital analysts. So, we decided to sit, analyze and understand the situation.

After a thorough understanding of this news, there are a few things that came into light. One thing that was for sure is that, when Google decided to take down a branch of its own tree, it also ensured to find a way so that the enormous internet marketing space doesn’t get affected.

There are 3 main reasons that caused the slow death of Google Plus over a period of time;

  1. Google real-time search: The local real-time searches migrate the visitors to G plus mentions instead of Google places or blogs. At most incidents, Google plus conversations would pop up in the search results. This was the case with Google Plus initially.This built a lot of unreliability towards Google search results as they were filled with confused data. Hence, Google stopped pushing the data from Google plus, which slowly brought the engagement down.
  2. Security issues: Another reason was a major technical glitch of privacy breach which went unnoticed and unaddressed by the Google Plus team for some time. This glitch caused exposure of private information of over 5 lakh profiles such as occupation, contact details, etc which led to a lot of unreliability. As Google plus is majorly a photo-sharing platform, the compromised security was unacceptable, which led to the decreased engagement on the platform.
  3. Overall low engagement: As per analytics, more than 90% of Google plus users’ sessions were less than five seconds. This lack of use and low engagement due to the above-mentioned reasons are a motivation to this decision of taking down Google plus. Slowly and steadily, Google Plus was reduced in usage making it a forgotten application. Every Google user would have a plus account but it would be dormant and not in use. The takedown was long anticipated but once the news was out, the digital marketers all feared for the work they put into Google ads. 

Because, before Google plus became life, they introduced these +1 buttons for websites for improving the search quality and ranking. These buttons can be incorporated in any website with ease, where the user can share the content with fellow users. There were a lot of speculations back in time that the plus one button ranking was influenced by Google plus content. By taking down Google plus, they can rest assured that the impact on the search ads quality and ranking will not be affected.

Lastly, the migration from Google plus to the alternative platform can be planned smoothly as there is a bridge of 10 months. The complete shutdown would happen by August next year, which gives ample time for the user to transfer and download data.

As the best digital marketing agency in Hyderabad, we recommend every digital marketer and agency to make use of this time for a smooth transition. Stay updated on what Google is going to come up with for alternate solutions and plan for ad campaigns in an efficient way. After all, changes are for advancement and adapting to these changes is the only way to enhancement.

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