It's not easy being Google+ (or green)

With a report in the LA Times showing that traffic to Google+ has dropped in half over the 21 weeks since its launch, Google is calling out the big guns, heavy artillery, the A-Team in an attempt to reverse its fortunes. Yes, that is right, Google will feature the Muppets in its television advertisements for Google+.

There are those who would point to the latest statistics to show that Google+ doesn't need any help. According to Hitwise, the social site had its third largest week of traffic in the 7 day period ending November 12th. That figure showed a 25% increase in traffic to the site from October. The best week that the site has had since launch was 15 million visitors in a week, but as of the middle of last month the site was drawing an average of 6.8 million weekly visitors.



Google's own stats show a better picture. "Google+" is the second most searched for term in 2011, but despite what would seemingly be a positive statistic, the site only had two peaks in the number of visitors. One was in July when the service was invitation-only, and the second was in September when it opened to the public.

So can the whimsical nature of the Muppets as they sing the Queen/David Bowie song "Under Pressure" send new visitors to Google+? We will have to wait and see what the numbers tell us after the ad has been in rotation for a decent period of time. Google has used the Muppets before, namely on what would have been the 75th birthday of Muppets creator Jim Henson as the characters formed an interactive Google logo. But this is a more serious task for Google as the guys at Mountain View try to make a dent in the social network arena.

source: Hitwise via PCMag