14 DAY TRIAL // Google+ is only a few weeks old, but it's been growing like crazy. We have some official numbers, but they're already outdated, since they're from last week, and we also have some estimates, which have proven reliable so far, but are still only estimates.
Now the big boys are weighing in, Experian Hitwise, the analytics company, has issued a report on how Google+ is doing. The data only extends to July 16, roughly its first two weeks, but it is the most thorough to date.
That's not to say it's greatly reliable, analytics companies rely on a number of ways of statistically determining website metrics, a site that's only been live for a couple of weeks, which is growing like crazy and has an unusual demographic distribution, as is always the case with new sites, may throw even the best algorithms off, so take the numbers with more than a grain of salt.
Disclaimer out of the way, here are some of the more interesting stats. Already, Google+ is the 42nd social networking site in the US. It is also the 638th most visited site overall in the US.
The numbers don't seem that impressive, even for a new site, but according to the data, Google+ got only 1.8 million visits in the week ending in July 16.
That's 1.8 million visits, not unique visitors, so that number may actually be smaller. That's a big difference between the registered user number, which is as high as 20 million according to the latest estimates.
But that's bound to happen with new sites, you can get people to sign up, but it's harder to keep them sticking around.
Still, that's an 821 percent growth in visits from the first week. Unsurprisingly, most visits came from the younger set, 38.37 percent of them from users between 25 and 34 years old.
The data also shows a slump in visits in the last days which it covers. If the data is accurate, than Google+ active users rate is rather small and the company is going to have trouble building up Steam for the site, especially now that the initial hype has died down somewhat. [via Mashable]