Topsy: Google Plus Search

Melanie Wahl - October 19, 2011

Our last Analytics Blog post, entitled Google Plus: How To See Google Plus Posts, took a look inside Google’s Advanced Search features to find public posts by those using Google Plus in relation to a specific keyword or keyphrase. We would now like to share with you an alternative for searching for Google Plus posts on Google:

Meet Topsy, a social search engine, which has come out with a search engine specifically for Google Plus:

http://plus.topsy.com/

The front page includes a search bar and the top trending social posts of the day. If you click on the hyperlinked title, “To the point I guess” for example, you are taken to the source, in this case the Google Plus post which shows the shares below. Also note that this Google Plus member chose to share her location publically.

https://plus.google.com/105006381068870463173/posts/JS3avBjsUgX

If you click on the orange word bubble paired with a number ( ) you are taken to a Topsy page that displays tweets and other posts about the post in question.

Topsy uses pretty standard search operators; you can find the list of operators here.

An example search for “apple iphone” resulted in the following:

http://plus.topsy.com/s?q=%22apple+iphone%22

A few things to note here:

1. The default is the Past 1 Day. Similarly to the previous blog post’s mention of Google’s search, you can adjust the time frame.
2. You may want to select “English” as the language of preference. The first result here is in Russian.
3. There is a feature here that may go unnoticed, the Experts section under Search.

http://plus.topsy.com/s/%22apple+iphone%22/expert

The Search by Expert section allows you to drill down into exactly who is talking about you, your business, or your product, along with what they are saying and how often they are saying it.

We are always on the lookout of new ways to monitor presence on the web. If you have any suggestions or questions, please contact us or leave a comment.