• Los Angeles Times, Friday, November 18, 2011 12:42 PM

U.S. traffic to Google+ has dropped in 11 of the 21 weeks since its launch in late June -- typically falling between 10% and 20% week-over-week -- according to new data from Experian Hitwise given exclusively to the Los Angeles Times. “To be fair, Google+ has seen a substantial overall gain in visitors since its launch in late June,” LAT notes. “But the large majority of its growth came in a single week in September, after it opened its doors to the public. Since then, much of that gain has ebbed.”

For two months before Google+ opened to the public, the platform was accessible only to users with an invitation. Yet, a frenzied buzz around the site helped it build a large audience of early adopters, which helped Google+ to quickly reach nearly 2 million unique visitors by the end of its third week. “But as the data show, a steady decline set in just as quickly -- and user interest appeared to wane,” LAT writes.

In late September, meanwhile, a similar pattern of rapid growth and stagnation began. When the service went public, Google+ experienced a surge, going from 1 million to 15 million visitors in a single week, according to Hitwise. Alas, more than half of those users did not return the following week, and the network has since lost nearly 50% of the gains it had made since officially debuting.

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