The dying Google Plus. Will its demise affect you?
by Anne R. Allen
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know I’ve had something of a love-hate relationship with Google Plus. It was clunky and annoying, but I recommended it as a way to get blogposts noticed by the Google search engine.
Of course it was always slow to load, and an “update” a few years ago made it massively user-unfriendly. Still, it was a great tool for SEO and boosting your blog traffic.
But change happens. And Google is pulling the plug on its unfashionable social media platform—partly because it seems to be a magnet for hackers. The second massive hack of Google Plus user data—affecting 52 million people—which came to light in October 2018, sealed its fate.
As of April 2, 2019, all of Google Plus will cease to exist—not just pages and groups, but profiles and links to profiles.
This means anything you’ve linked to your Google Plus profile will become a dreaded broken link. (Our Google profiles became Google Plus profiles several years ago.) Those nifty little bios that would appear in the upper right corner of a Google search of your name have gone away already. What appears now is your photo from your Google account and your book covers—as they appear on Google Play. Also, my research shows that a Google Play bio will show up in that right-side display, but no bio shows up otherwise.
I may be wrong on that, so if anybody has better knowledge than my Googling around has turned up, do let us know in the comments.
Social Media Profiles
Most of us have our social media links in profiles and bios all over the Web. And if you’re like me, you also have them in your email signature. (In gmail, your signature is in “settings” reached through the little gear icon, not in the main gmail menu. It always takes me a few tries to find it.)
So if you’ve taken my advice and joined Google Plus, now you have to erase the evidence.
The online world is unforgiving of the out-of-date, so we have to take the time to remove the Google Plus links. I’m constantly running into bios I haven’t de-Googled yet, but I know I need to get them all done before April 2nd.
Google Plus Groups
If you moderate a Google Plus Group you want to preserve, contact all the members right now and move to another platform. It doesn’t have to be Facebook, although generally that’s easiest.
But if the group is really big, you might like to start a blog where members can gather. Groups like the Insecure Writers Support Group have operated from a blog for years and it seems to work very well for a major group like that.
Alternatives to Google Plus Groups
And if your Google Plus writing group is disappearing, you might think of joining the IWSG. It costs nothing to join and it’s the best organization for writer networking I know. It was founded by bestselling sci-fi author Alex J. Cavanaugh, who makes sure the group is a safe, troll-free place for writers to get information and support. And they put out a fantastic anthology every year.
There are also a bunch of new alternatives to Facebook, Yahoo Groups, and Google Plus and I have a feeling more will be springing up. One of our readers, David B, recommends Groups.io! MeWe is an alternative to Facebook that vows to protect your privacy, Family Wall is supposed to be good for preserving family groups, Ello is a network for creatives, Raftr is a place to discuss news with like-minded folks.
For Blogger Blogs
If you’re using Google Plus for comments on your blog
Some Blogger (blogspot.com) blogs use Google Plus for comments. If your blog does this, you need to change your comments to the old Blogger system. Go to “settings” and then click “posts, comments, and sharing.” Then scroll down to “Google Plus Comments” and click on “No” for “Use Google+ comments on this blog.”
This means people will be able to comment directly on your blog. Unfortunately old comments that came through Google+ in the past will disappear.
Make Sure You Have a Blogger profile, and not the one from Google.
I had a Google Plus profile on my book blog, even though I used to have one from Blogger. Google changed that a few years ago, trying to get us all to use their dying platform.
So I’m glad I found out about this. (Many thanks to Chrys Fey of the IWSG for all the info.)
If you have a Google profile on your blog, you need to change back to a Blogger profile. Do this by going to “user settings,” then “settings.” Change the profile from “Google Plus” to “Blogger.”
You then update the profile on the blog itself, by clicking on “View your Complete Profile” on your dashboard (if you have the profile gadget in your layout.) Then hit “edit profile” at the top of the new page. If you haven’t added the profile gadget, go to the list of gadgets and add that to your sidebar.
This change means that when people click on your name, they’ll go directly to your Blogger profile. You’ll probably want to update it. I hadn’t looked at my Blogger profile in at least three years.
A Note to Blogger Users
Barb Drozdowich, webmaster for this blog and multi-talented tech whisperer, tells me Blogger hasn’t been updated for 4 years. And apparently some of its older themes don’t comply with Google’s own rules, even though it’s owned by Google. So the Google search engine doesn’t pick up your posts. 🙁
This makes me suspect that Blogger may go the way of Google Plus. I’m very much hoping it won’t, since my book blog is on Blogger and I love the fact that Blogger is user friendly and free. Not a lot left on the Internet that’s free. Which is probably why an ignominious demise like that of Google Plus may be in its future.
I have heard no official warnings of the impending death of Blogger, so this may be very premature. But do make sure you back up your blog regularly. Go to “Settings” and choose “other” then “import and back-up” and hit the button for “back up content.”
And you might want to think about scouting around for alternative blog platforms. I believe Wix and Weebly still offer free alternatives as well as WordPress.com (although you have to put up with a few ads or pay to have them removed on the freebie WordPress platform.)
I’d also make sure you have your posts copied and stored on your hard drive. Moving an entire blog from one platform to another is a bear, even if you have an up to date back-up file. The text and images may transfer, but the formatting probably will not. It took me over 6 months of long, hard days at the keyboard to repair the formatting when we moved this blog from Blogger to WordPress.
If you have a blog without a lot of comments, or you don’t care about moving the comments, you might consider reposting the pieces that are still relevant as new content.
Put one of those up every day for a month and your new blog will have a higher rating than an older once-a-week blog.
For WordPress Users
Share buttons
If you have a WordPress blog, you can remove the “share to Google+ button” by going to your dashboard—>“sharing,”—> “sharing buttons,” and —> “edit sharing buttons.”
You can also disconnect from sharing to Google Plus under “connections.”
If you use JetPack for your share buttons, the latest version of JetPack has already removed G+
Comments
If you have WordPress and want to comment on a Blogger blog, you’ll want go to your dashboard and change “comment as” from “Google”. Because that’s linked to a Google Plus profile. Which means that as of April 1st, anybody who clicks on your name will get a blank page or one of those dreaded 404 notices.
So you can change your “comment as” profile to “Name/URL.” That way people won’t get sent to a non-existent Google Plus profile when they click on your name. Instead they’ll go straight to your website or WordPress blog.
Unfortunately “Name/URL” doesn’t provide an image/avatar. But if you sign up with Gravatar, you can upload an avatar that will work on all sites all over the web. Gravatar is owned by WordPress, so the linking process is easy.
Gmail Isn’t Going Anywhere
I’ve seen some users panicking because they’re afraid Gmail may be going down with the Google Plus ship. But Gmail is alive and well. Also your Google Drive and Google My Business Listing, and everything else Google will be just fine.
It’s just Google Plus that is cashing in its chips.
But do make sure that you don’t end up deleting your Google account by mistake when deleting Google Plus. I almost did this. Not a good idea. Just wait it out. Poor old Google Plus will be making its way to dusty death soon enough.
RIP.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) March 10, 2019
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a Google profile? A Blogger blog? Google Plus links in your bios? Or are you blissfully Google-free? Have you heard any of the rumors that Blogger will be next on the chopping block?
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A valuable post. Thanks for the warnings & info!
Ruth–I was surprised at how many links I had to G+, so I figured it might be true of other authors.
Thank you for the awesome mention about the IWSG. We never set up a Google+ for the IWSG, but there was ever an issue with Blogger itself, we’d shift to either WordPress or set up a Squarespace site. At least we’ve also on three other social sites so people can find us.
I remember when Google+ showed profile views. I’m glad someone made a video of my sites during that time (it was a free analysis of my sites) and I still have a screen shot of those profile views. (I guess fourteen million was really good.)
Maybe that was one of those things that made Google+ much less user-friendly. And of course, has now led to their demise.
Alex–14 million profile views? Yeah, I’d say that was pretty good. 🙂
Google + kept getting more inscrutable. By techies and for techies. Nobody else felt welcome. Too bad. If they’d been less narcissistic, they could have given FB some real competition.
Hugely helpful — thanks heaps & heaps.
CS–I hope this helps you de-Googlify your blog!
Never had Google+ and really despised it with a passion seldom exhibited with other Google products. This hatred stemmed from when I made the mistake of aligning my YouTube account with my Blogger and GMail account and they automatically added me to Google+. As I rule, I hate being added to something w/o my permission (unfriended those who were stupid enough to do that to me on FB), so I never used it and active blocked people who attempted to add me to it.
I haven’t heard anything about Blogger’s possible imminent demise, although I do subscribe to Chuck Kroll’s blog about all things Blogger (he’s been quite irregular about posting these days) and I something checkout the Blogger forum to see what kind new stuff is happening, both good and bad. I’ve already left one platform, so if something comes to pass for Blogger, I’ll probably switch to WordPress, Weebly or Wix and import everything to there.
G.B.–No doubt that kind of bullying and creepy shenanigans are what led to the demise of G+. Tech companies forget that their “targets” are actual humans who value our privacy and free will.
I don’t know Chuck Kroll’s blog. I will check it out! I want to keep up with what’s happening with Blogger. Thanks!
Very helpful, if somewhat sad. Now there’s probably going to be a mini-landrush to own the SEO of new blog posts? I went to my blog page to get rid of the G+ share button, and it looks like my publisher already did it! So all I had to do today was read the wisdom and wonder about the future…
Will–The world of SEO is mostly a mystery to me. It’s all about gaming algorithms, which involves knowledge that goes way over my head. Google plus was just a short cut for Luddites like me. Let’s hope another one appears.
Looking forward to your guest blogpost for us in two weeks!
I think there are two stages to SEO. The first is simply taking note of the basics to get your posts in good shape to be noticed by the algorithms. The second is to game it with all the ‘in’ tags etc. My posts show up well with just the first stage 🙂 I went with Yoast for some help with this. It helps!
Jemima–I’m a big fan of Yoast. They’ve taught me a lot. I was talking about the professional SEO people who are ultra competitive and play games with algorithms that the rest of us simply don’t have time for.
I really liked Google Plus until they messed with it >.< But this is all great advice, occasionally I still comment on Blogger blogs (although I'm WordPress 'til I die) so I'll go and make sure the right stuff is linked!
Icy–I felt the same way. I even had a group page until the “update” happened that made the whole site a ridiculous mess.
Barb says WordPress is the safest place for a blog. 🙂
Thanks for the tips, Anne.
I used Google Plus only briefly but the other threads i’d not considered. My social sharing links did include G+. And I know a few Blogger users who should see this. What a headache as commenting on Blogger is a headache unless your a Blogger user.
I also had no idea it would impact Google Groups. An alternative I’d recommend there is Groups.io. They have free options and it’s much better than Google or Yahoo for discussions.
Groups.io used to offer free migration from the other platforms but Yahoo made it harder so they have to manually do part of it. But they can be migrated.
David–Thanks much for the info on Groups.io! I’ll put that in the body of the post.
Hi Anne
It would seem your wording is a bit misleading. Google Plus groups will disappear with Google Plus.
Google Groups itself is continuing. They’re bringing in a major update in May that essentially dumbs it down markedly, reducing customization and admin options.
From my experience, Google Groups is not as good as Yahoo Groups but Yahoo isn’t much better (the Neo update made it worse). A recent migration to Groups.io was successful and is a much superior platform for either.
David–I got misled myself! I thought all Google Groups were going. I will fix that now. Many thanks!
Thanks! I never thought about backing up the blog before – done!
Jemi–Backing up our blogs is a must. My Blogger blog got hijacked once, and I would have lost the whole thing without a backup!
Anne, this was a timely blog for me. I was reading and enjoying your book ‘The Author Blog.’ BTW, ‘The Author Blog’ is an interesting, easy to read book full of great tips and common sense. I just finished Chapter 6 where you talk about the way to get an Online Profile. So I was weighing Google Plus with the others and then saw your blog. I guess I won’t be using Google Plus. Which brings me to my social media adviser friend from elementary school whom I spoke with today–Con Sweeney from NYC. Con confirmed your announcement and suggested WordPress to me. He was also interested in you and requested the names of your books. I felt happy to connect the two of you. Finally, another piece of advice taken–two days ago I submitted an excerpt from my first book “It’s Your Camino” (about our pilgrimage through northern Spain) on a prominent Camino blogsite called Ivar and got some wonderful feedback from hiker pilgrims from around the world. A woman from Massachusetts said she wants to buy my book. For the first time in a few months, I felt happy about what I was doing. Thank you. I know I am in a good place with you and Ruth (Harris)!
Kenneth–Great to see you here. I don’t make many connections through LinkedIn, because it can be so annoyingly full of spammers. But I’m glad you reached out to me. I hope your friend Con will stop by!
You are exactly the kind of writer who benefits from a blog. Networking is exactly what you need to do to connect with your audience, and blogging is the best way to do that. I’m glad to hear you’ve had success already.
Alas, the demise of Google Plus makes some of the advice in my book obsolete. In fact I’ve spent the weekend de-Google-Plussing the text. because a couple of reviewers have already complained and my publisher wanted it done ASAP. The new version will be live soon. The paper version will take more time, because apparently my edits changed the pagination. Sigh.
Essentially everything is the same except for recommending the Google Plus profile and using Google Plus for SEO. I’m glad you’re finding the book helpful!
Thanks for this. I don’t think I ever had anything to do with Google Plus but I love my Google email account. I’m assuming that if I do nothing that everything will remain the same with my Google account.
Patricia–As far as I know, nothing should be changing about our gmail. I sure hope it won’t!
I can’t tell you how useful this post is!! Thank you SO much!
Alison–I’m glad to hear it’s helpful!
Great post, Anne! As always, you covered every aspect of this topic.
Frances–Many thanks! I appreciate the stamp of approval from a book marketing expert!
I dumped Google totally, a while back. Gmail changed their email format and I couldn’t get it back to the regular email. I emailed them, I looked through forums and no luck. It was very…bouncy…and hard on my optic-nerve-damaged eyes. So I went over to Yahoo email, instead.
Willow–I sure do find the new gmail annoying. I guess it works better if you’re sending on a phone, but it sure doesn’t for a desktop computer. Sometimes I think tech is just into change for change’s sake. I wish that they wouldn’t “fix” thinks when they ain’t broke. 🙂
I was a google fan girl for over a decade. But after adopting so many of their beta products, integrating them into my way of using the internet, and then having them taken away… now I just sigh.
I did look hard to make sure my google images weren’t going away.
If they touch googleDocs or gmail, I’ll have a problem. These days? I just adapt. Thanks for the warning!
Morgan–We seem to be okay with Google images, Docs and mail. That doesn’t mean Alphabet won’t suddenly decide to make purple unicorns spring up when you try to open an email or blare a U2 soundtrack when you’re trying to save a Google Doc.
Because they can. And, as I said to Willow above, they seem to be addicted to change for the sake of change, not because they’re making improvements. But they seem to be satisfied enough that they won’t snatch those services away entirely..
A great load of important updates Anne, thank you. And I have noticed on some Blogger blogs I’ve commented on recently still have me logging in with my Google profile. If I don’t see a different option from now on, I won’t bother commenting. 🙂
Debby–The”Google Profile” they want at Blogger isn’t a bio. It’s just the ID you have for gmail, so that’s okay.
I was talking about the “Google Profile” that’s the short bio that came up with a Google search. That was from Google Plus. Now you don’t get a bio on a Google Search unless you have a bio on Google Play and I don’t know how to get that yet.
Yes. It’s totally confusing. But the original Google Profile ID from gmail remains, so you should have no problem commenting on Blogger blogs.
Thanks for this Anne. I wasn’t even aware about profiles on Google Play, it’s almost exhausting lol. I will wait for you to sleuth it out and share with us. Thanks for setting me straight. 🙂
I love my Blogger blog. And I found this article very helpful. Thank you, Anne.
Leanne–Me too! I’m fond of Blogger. I wish Google would give it a little more love!
do you think this will soon mark the end for Google Play as well? (and I for one hated blogs that allowed Google comments because I had to view it in Chrome to get it to work and I’m a Safari user). So YAY for me.
Judy–I think Google Play is doing well. No reason to suspect they’re going anywhere.
I agree about Google + comments. Even for Chrome users they were a pain. It became the default comment platform for a while for Blogger and that was pure bullying. The way McAfee says you have an “unsafe” search engine if your default is Google. They want to trick you into using Yahoo. Those tech companies are all run by ultra competitive little-boy minds. Grrr.
I got a Blogger blog so as to comment on blogger blogs during the A2Z Challenge (it’s Theme Reveal day, by the way). It seems to work. I don’t think it’s linked to my G+ profile, and anyway, as I’ve now deleted that and I’m still commenting with my Google profile, I must be okay. Although here I’m commenting with my WordPress account.
I think the reason WordPress has been so successful is that it concentrates on doing WordPress well.
Jemima–Clever to simply get a Blogger blog so you can comment. I agree that WordPress is successful because they do one thing and do it well. Doing a half-a** job in a number of things is never as good as doing one thing well.