Social networks are full of fake accounts and bought ‘likes’ and ‘+1s’. Digital marketers settled in Google+ and Facebook after some articles, showing a correlation between Google +1s and Google’s search rankings were published. However, Matt Cutts said:

“If you make compelling content, people will link to it, like it, share it on Facebook, +1 it, etc. But that doesn’t mean that Google is using those signals in our ranking. Rather than chasing +1s of content, your time is much better spent making great content.”

The question whether Google+ shares affects ranking has been discussed in SEO blogs often. An interesting study was conducted by Eric Enge, the President of Stone Temple Consulting. This study has been repeated for a second time – the first one was presented at SMX Advanced and disputed by Matt Cutts during his keynote interview by Danny Sullivan.

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The second time the study was conducted, Matt Cutts gave some guidance and the results are interesting. We want to share the results of the study.

What was found:

  1. Google+ shares do drive discovery and may bring traffic.
  2. Google+ shares appear to drive indexing.
  3. No material evidence of Google+ shares driving ranking was seen.

What do you think about the study results? Will you pursue Google+ shares when you know it doesn’t improve your rankings?

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