There's been somewhat of a furor over the news that some large companies are using Google+ not as the "social hangout" that the large search engine purports wanting it to be, but as a tool for actually affecting search engine rankings and getting more of an SEO push on their own online presence. Starbucks was one company admitting to using Google+ for SEO purposes while "The Economist" was another.



What's not to like if you join Google+ when you are a business? You get treated like royalty with placement in the prime location in the search results; top right hand side. Normally, a business would pay through the nose for a spot like this, but Google gives it for free to lure in businesses to hop on to their service.

This has been an excellent decision on the part of The Economist to have an account and business profile with Google Plus. Not only have they gained a new audience, but they boast to having twice the people following their Google+ account as they do on Facebook. It's a great way for them to reach their fans and at the same time boost their SEO campaign. Their strategy must be working though because their Google+ posts are showing up in the SERPs.

There has been quite a lot of push-back from users it seems after Google started requiring a Google Plus account to comment on YouTube videos. Many have stopped using the service altogether to avoid the big G from tracking their whereabouts across all the Google products like Gmail, YouTube and Google+. Some just see it as a minor inconvenience and continue on.

Each of these posts points searchers to the main site, creating some impressive SEO juice. Regardless of any talk about general fairness, Google wants its properties to rank well, meaning a Google+ post is going to be seen favorably since it gives Google more publicity in addition to the company putting up that particular post. This is the loophole "The Economist" is using - pushing Google's own self interest to help rank their own posts.