Does Google’s Emphasis On “Plus” Hurt SEO Traffic For Facebook Pages?

Posted on May 31 2012 - 5:35am by Editorial Staff

A new study by Pagelever (via Search Engine Land) revealed that how Google’s new emphasis on “Plus” resulted in less SEO traffic to Facebook fan pages. Before Google released Plus, they averaged 9.25 external referrals per-day, per-page to the pages in this dataset. On January 7th, this plummeted to an average of 4.52 external referrals per-day, which is 51% drop. Google released Search Plus Your World on January 10th, accompanied by complaints about Google promoting Plus pages higher than Facebook and Twitter.

Talking about Bing, In 2011, Bing generated an average of 5.19 external pageviews for Facebook Pages in this dataset. In 2012, this dropped dramatically to an average of only 2.09 pageviews per day. This is a 59% drop year over year. Slightly surprising given the integration of Facebook into Bing results. On January 7th, the amount of traffic from Google to Facebook pages started plummeting. Bing’s traffic dropped in a similar manner.

(Image Source: Pagelever)

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