According to data shared by Experian Hitwise US, Google+ received around 50 million visits in December. That’s a jump of nearly 20 million from the month before and its biggest month of traffic since its launch at the end of June.

Google’s social network launched a holiday barrage of commercials featuring the Muppets and pro basketball stars using Google+ video Hangouts. CNET called the commercials “desperate,” but according to Hitwise’s numbers, the effort paid off.
TechCrunch reportedcomScore numbers last month showing nearly 67 million unique visitors in November worldwide. Today’s Hitwise numbers show visits from the U.S. only. As TechCrunch’s Eric Eldon pointed out, third-party numbers are never 100% accurate. Still, both comScore and Hitwise agree that Google+ traffic is rising slowly but steadily. In its Q3 earnings call, Google reported 40 million registered Google+ users.

Google+ also got some significant upgrades in December that may have contributed to better traffic. It got better noise control in the stream of posts, somewhat clearer notifications, and a new interface for photos. It added long-awaited features for managing brand pages as a team. And video Hangouts, the distinguishing feature of Google+, got major updates on the desktop and mobile to be more visible and accessible.
Google+ is now integrated into long-standing Google properties like Gmail, Blogger and YouTube. Google reported that ‘Google+’ was the #2 worldwide search term last year. Its momentum made Google+ our top social Web product of the year.
Post has been updated to reflect that the comScore numbers reported by TechCrunch were worldwide, whereas these Hitwise numbers are U.S.-only.
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