Google+ emerged as the third largest site in the Social Network and Forums category last Wednesday, a day after the site went from “invitation-only” to “open access” available to everyone.
Opening access created a massive spike in market share of visits for the site, with a 1269% growth from the week ending September 17th to the week of September 24th. The site also received nearly 15 million total US visits last week.
In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site in our Social Networking and Forums category to 8th place.The evolution of Google+’s audience composition from its launch in early July to last week illustrates how quickly the cycle from “Innovator” and “Early Adopter” phase, to the “Early Majority” and “Late Majority” can occur.
In comparison to the online population, Google + continued to over-index for and win a high share of its visits from Mosaic USA 2011 Types which contain “Influencers”, “Early Adopters” and the internet-savvy, like “Bohemian Groove”, “Gotham Blend” and “Progressive Potpourri” ; this indicates that “Early Adopters” still account for a large share of Google+’s traffic.Yet the week of September 24th also saw a sharp increase in visit share from “Hispanic Harmony”, “Platinum Prosperity” and “Striving Single Scene”, amongst others, shifting the audience profile of Google+. Besides the outlier “Platinum Prosperity”, the unifying factor between these varied groups is their lower to middle income profile. This evolution in audience profile indicates that Google+ may be shifting into the “Early Majority” stage.
Note – the data does not include mobile traffic or traffic from the Google Notification Bar
Thanks to Margot Bonner, Analyst on the Custom Data & Insights team for helping with today’s analysis.