Google+ Growth Slows as SEO Gamers Surface

Having seen a 238 percent rise in U.S. visits in the week ended July 16, Google+ saw U.S. traffic fall around three percent the following week, Bloomberg reported. Meanwhile, sites offering "+1 for pay" rankings have already sprouted up, offering to help site owners game Google's rating and promotion system. Records also show that users now make fewer and shorter visits to the new social network.

The stat firm Experian claims that the average time users spend on Google+ has shrunk by around 10 percent, dropping to five minutes 15 seconds. In the week ended July 23, U.S. visits totaled 1.79 million, the firm estimates, though it admits that its figures do not take into account access from mobile apps, nor third-party app traffic, according to a report by slashgear.com.

A portion of the remaining users, however, may well be promoting content for pay. At lease one search engine optimization firm has begun offering +1 bundles, The Atlantic reported. The company said all of the clicks come from real people who will be manually going to your website and clicking the +1 button. It also claims that it's untraceable because the +1s are from different IPs.