Shrewsbury, Shropshire -- (SBWIRE) --11/15/2011 -- Search engine optimisation company KPI Business Solutions is advising its clients to keep an eye on Google+ as a potential future market for online business.

KPI and other business insiders have described Google+ as the search giant's clearest attempt yet to challenge Facebook's dominance in the social media marketplace. Launched in June, Google's social networking site has until now remained something of a sleeping giant. Although at 40 million users it is still somewhat shy of Facebook (which has over 800 million), it has already overtaken the sick man of the social media sphere, Myspace (33 million users and falling).

Graham Loosley, Head of Search and Social at KPI, has further advised clients that, although Google+ does not yet support business pages, it is likely only a matter of time until the network is merged with Google Places to form a new Google Business page.

Like Microsoft in the 1990s, Google has been noted for its aggressively expansionist business policy. Google Street View, Google Maps and the company's handling of search history records have all been huge successes despite provoking controversy, and KPI observes Google are unlikely to have launched their new social media site for simply altruistic reasons. Loosley said:

"At this stage Google+ is not influencing search results, so far as we can tell. However, as Google seek to improve the quality of their search results and continue their personalisation campaign, the Google+ data will at some point prove irresistible to them as a ranking signal"

While this may provoke consternation among privacy campaigners, KPI recognises that it potentially marks a whole new arena for those looking to maximise their search engine optimisation results. A sign of the times may have come in recent news that Larry Paige has overtaken Mark Zuckerberg as the most popular Google+ page for the first time since the site's launch. Quite how many +s Tom from Myspace still has these days is unknown.