Someone from Google Plus discreetly announced in a blog post a few weeks ago, that they will remove the share counters from their Google Plus sharing buttons, (including the third party API’s) in order to increase the load speed for the +1 button and sharing box. This means that on your blog and elsewhere outside Google Plus platform, your +1s and share counts will not show anymore on your sharing buttons, especially if you use something different than the famous Social Warfare – Pro. I mentioned them because it seems that they solved the problem, somehow.
This post used to have more than 6k G+ shares
[source]
I Don’t Show Google Plus Sharing Counts, I Show the Total
Why I made this pill (first in a long time), neglecting some famous deaths and birthdays (the usual topics for my pills), is mostly because I have noticed a dramatic fall in my share counts. I use Sumo Me, a free version for a very complex plugin, and to avoid the empty boxes (Twitter made the same vicious move in 2015), I set it to show only the total. I didn’t care until I noticed. Ok, let’s say that actually doesn’t matter, if your Alexa is good, it means that you have a good traffic.
The funny thing is that I read an article (otherwise very interesting) on cnbc.com and I notice a video at the end of it. It was on their own player, not a Youtube embedded one, so it had the website’s sharing buttons, not a third party’s. I usually share something I liked on all three major social networks, Facebook, Google Plus, and of course Twitter, once one of my favorites.
The bomb is that there wasn’t a Google Plus sharing button there. Even if they don’t show a total sharing counter, like a lot of other prestigious websites and blogs, the button was still missing. What is more interesting is that Yoast, the best SEO plugin on the market didn’t even bother to create a separate metadata sharing box for Google Plus, as it did for Twitter and Facebook. Go figure!
cnbc.com didn’t bothered with a Google Plus Sharing button anymore
[source: www.cnbc.com]
A Sad Conclusion with a Lot of Hope in a Better Future
I have considered Google Plus something major, as did a lot of other people, with higher geeky credentials than me, and I was wrong. I avoided Facebook considering it too invasive, and why not, I have been enough active on G+, why waste time with another monster? I was very wrong. Google Plus developers destroyed the network. It’s harder and harder to communicate there, to manage the notifications, you don’t know if some old friend is still your friend or not, if someone follows you or not, and many others, I’m sure I have already mentioned in the past.
I stated that I am too disappointed by them to waste any more time to write about them, a minute more is too much; I haven’t participated in discussions and forums from a certain moment on, even when I have been called. It’s funny, I still share on G+ because I have a lot of friends there. I have checked some streams lately and I noticed that the spark is gone, but douches who praised Google Plus in every possible way, from the minimum detail (the logo’s font) to the monstrous change (the new UI), now are totally disoriented. They don’t know who’s train to follow.
There is still hope, as a solution for Twitter shares to show has been found, as imperfect as it is, I’m sure that something will appear for G+ as well. Anyway, I think that it’s better to remove the counts on your sharing buttons yourself. Indeed, only a chicken brain can argue that an advertising agent won’t hire you if you doesn’t show buzz on your blog. If two years ago you were contacted because of your site’s PR (another thing destroyed by Google just to crush small budget websites), today other factors are considered, one of them being Alexa.
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