Google+ rocketing since opening up to the public

In the week since Google took its brand new social network, Google+, public the network has seen a record number of signups.

A recent post by Paul Allen, Ancestry.com co-founder and unofficial Google+ statistician, revealed that Google+ has reached an estimated 43.4-million users and counting. According to Allen, roughly a third of the users were added in the few days after Google+ opened itself to the public.

Allen’s Google+ numbers first gained credibility in early July, when he estimated the service had 10-million users which was confirmed by Google CEO, Larry Page, two days later in a call to investors.

Others have also reported the rocketing growth of Google+ in the last week. According to Hitwise research director Heather Dougherty traffic to the nascent social network rocketed 1 269 percent on Wednesday, a day after it opened to the public.

The number of visits to Google+ tallied nearly 15-million for the week in a leap from the approximately 1.1-million logged in the prior week, Hitwise analysts concluded.

The Hitwise data did not include traffic from mobile devices.

“In just one week, Google+ went from ranking as 54th most visited site in our Social Networking and Forums category to 8th place,” Dougherty said in a blog post.

Google+ opened up the public last Tuesday with Google making a host of new improvements to the social network.

On Monday, for instance, social gaming firm Zynga added its most popular title — CityVille — to the catalogue of games that can be played at the Google+.

“It’s no secret we’re big fans of Google+ here at Zynga,” the San Francisco-based startup said in a blog post.

“Last month we announced that we partnered with Google to bring Zynga Poker to Google+, and today we’re excited to add CityVille+ to the new game platform,” the message continued.

In August, Google+ opened a gaming zone as part of its continual vying with Facebook to be the hub for people’s online lives.

Along with global game sensation Angry Birds, the initial array of offerings available at Google+ included Bejeweled Blitz, Zynga Poker, and Dragon Age Legends.