What Google Answers When You Type — “Is Google Plus Dead?”

Of late I have been reading and learning a lot on SEO for my enterprise sales enablement startup, QuizPrompt. There were a lot of recommendations about having a Google+ profile. Ah — Google Plus — haven’t thought about it lately. Last I read about Google+ on the news, was when Vic Gundotra left Google.

So the question that immediately popped up in my mind was — Is Google+ still kicking? Or is it dead?

As with all questions that I need an answer to, I dutifully asked Google. Here’s what I got:

The top card is a Google Featured Snippet — which bravely proclaims that Google+ is not dead. Things have been somewhat down of late, it admits. But Google is overhauling its 4th social network. Given the ambivalent nature of all the search results, it’s interesting that Google chooses to show a positive spin as a Featured Snippet.

The top search result is interesting — “You Should Stop Asking Is Google Plus Dead”. Looks like I’m not the only one looking for answers to this question.

The next few results kind of alternates between “Google+ is not dead — not at all” and “Google+ is as dead as a doornail”.

So I logged into my Google+ account to see what kind of actions are going on. I was greeted by a status update about a Hangout I had with someone 3 years ago. That was followed by a list of collections including:

• Birds, posing nicely for you
• Delhi Belly
• Korean Food

No, I’m not making this up! Given that Google tracks my every click — knows where I go, what I do, which restaurants I frequent, what type of movies I like — I found these suggestions frankly baffling. Come on Google — if you want people to come back to Google+, you better seed it with some personalized contents.

If you’re bored at work. you might want to login to your Google+ to check what it suggests — it might be fun.

Maybe Google+ is still relevant for SEO, but I’m not going back to check my Hangout status anytime soon!