Google+ is closing down; will it affect your website?

Google, the search engine giant, has announced the end to their Google+ social media platform. On April 2 of this year, all Google+ accounts and pages will be shut down and then deleted. Starting on February 4, Google put a halt on the ability to create new Google+ accounts, pages, communities or events. The company said this decision is based on low usage numbers and the challenge of keeping the platform up-to-date with consumers’ expectations.
But just because Google+ is going away, that doesn’t mean all of your Google accounts are closing. Popular G-Suite services like Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar are all here to stay and should not be impacted by the social media platform’s demise.
So how exactly does Google+ shutting down affect your website? There are actually a few ways.
SEO
If you’re linking to your Google+ account on your homepage, and you don’t remove that icon or feed before the platform becomes defunct, then it could be read as a dead link by Google, which can negatively impact SEO. Also, some SEO professionals believed that Google+ posts contributed positively to your site’s SEO; obviously, Google+ can no longer impact your site’s rankings, although you shouldn’t lose any of the benefit you might have already gained from it. Counteract this by implementing other SEO strategies and learning how to get on Google’s good side.
Losing Content
If you’ve been posting content to Google+ (such as photos, video and written text) in hopes of saving it there, then this shut down is bad news for you. After April 2, Google will begin deleting all content on Google+ pages and groups. The only thing that’s safe are images backed up in Google Photo. We would recommend taking whatever you’d like to save and putting into a Google Drive folder or a Dropbox account. Here’s Google’s guide on how to download photos from your Google+ account.
End of Extras
Google+ did have convenient extra features that some users took advantage of, but those are all going away now as well. This includes signing into sites or apps through the Google+ button, using your Google+ account to comment on Blogger posts and the closing of all Google+ Community pages.
If you’re an Infomedia client who features Google+ on their website, then reach out to Support today to see about removing it. For further information and to read more details about the end of Google+, see Google’s official statement.