Ian Laurie recently did a comprehensive study of Google+ ranking factors. You can read the full report here on Google+ Ranking Factors
| Google SPY Results for a Google search on SEO |
The main takeaway from the report is that +1's not surprisingly matter a lot, but Ian went into great detail to analyze what really matters.
The research was split into two parts, 1) Asking a field of respected SEOs their opinions on Google+ and its ranking criteria and 2) Conducting analysis based on the initial thoughts.
One of the more surprising things discovered in this research is that the content in the about section of your Google+ profile doesn't have a significant effect on where your Google+ pages will rank in Search Plus Your World (SPY).
The frequency of posting has an effect but generally makes way the number of people in the circles.
So from Ian's research we can conclude the following factors and order of importance with respect to Google+ and SPY results
- +1s matter - A LOT!
- Number of people in your Circles
- Comment Frequency
- Post Frequency
