It’s always interesting when Google decides to push something on their main property, the Google search page. Considering how ubiquitous Google is, this is such a power move.
What we mean is that no other company can cast its net this wide by just modifying its home page. We all use Google. It’s like your TV remote suddenly coming alive and telling you that yeah, you should check out that Google+ thing.
And it’s not just a shy little text snippet below the search field, there’s a big, bold arrow as well. This ad is much more prominent than what we normally see from Google and should give you an idea of how important the new social network is to them.
Another thing worth pointing out is that this Google+ promotion isn’t just on Google.com. Google seems to be pushing Google+ on the localized versions of the Google search page as well. We just checked the Swedish version, Google.se, and the same thing showed up there.
Google is playing for keeps now. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a strong push for Google+ on other Google properties as well, such as YouTube.
We’ve speculated before on how large Google’s total user base is across its properties. The number landed between 1 and 1.5 billion. So if Google really wants to push Google+ out there, it can reach a huge audience very quickly. Today’s move certainly points in that direction, and coincides nicely with Google+ now being fully open to the public.