It’s started, the top lists of 2012! Over the next few days, we’ll be posting a series of these, including the most read Search Engine Land stories, the most tweeted ones and the ones most liked on Facebook. But to kick it off, the stories with the most +1′s on Google+.

How did we collect this data? Search Engine Land columnist Annie Cushing suggested we use Social Crawlytics, a tool that easily crawls the site and reports on the social activity for each URL. If you haven’t checked it out, go do so. It’s free to get started.

A few observations while aggregating list:

• Seventeen of the top 20 stories have the word “Google” in the headline. People on Google+ sure like stories about Google!
• Eight of these stories have the word “Panda” in the headline, so Google’s Panda Update that began in 2011 made news all through 2012
• Three stories mention “SEO” in the headline

Without further ado, here are our top stories with the most +1′s from 2012, with the number of +1′s each received shown after the headline:

1. Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More (490)

2. Google Launches Knowledge Graph To Provide Answers (336)

3. Google Pushing Out Panda Update 3.9 Tonight (278)

4. The Definitive Guide To Google Authorship Markup (268)

5. Official: It’s Google Panda Update 23, Impacting ~1.3% Of Queries (266)

6. For Social Media Marketers, SEO Is Much More Popular Than PPC (263)

7. Google Releases Panda Update 21, Impacts 1.1% Of US Queries In English (234)

8. WSJ Says Big Google Search Changes Coming? Reality Check Time! (231)

9. Back To The Future: Google Announces A Meta Keywords Tag Just For News Articles (229)

10. Google Panda 3.2 Update Confirmed (213)

11. Ex-Googler: “To Please Google With Your SEO, Forget About SEO” (208)

12. Google Panda Update 20 Released, 2.4% Of English Queries Impacted (206)

13. Google Places Ranking Factors – The PhD Version (194)

14. Facebook Gets Into Local Search With “Facebook Nearby” For iOS & Android (172)

15, Google Says Panda 3.4 Is ‘Rolling Out Now’ (170)

16. Panda Update 3.92 Rolling Out (Or Is It Panda 20 Time?) (161)

17. Google’s Gags Go Worldwide For April Fool’s Day 2012 (155)

18. 2012 Year In Review: Important Shifts In Google SEO (144)

19. Study: 39% Of Google Search Referrers Now “Not Provided” (142)

20. Google Plus Connections Are The New Links (126)

Related Topics: Channel: Other | Features: Analysis | Most Popular Stories | Top News

About The Author: Monica Wright has over 10 years of media and content marketing experience, with a strong focus on driving online audiences for media companies. She serves as the the Community Editor for Marketing Land and Search Engine Land, and regularly consults and speaks on SEO, social media, and local search techniques. You can also find Monica on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. See more articles by Monica Wright

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