After three months of testing the social-network waters, Google+ is finally ready to make a big splash. In the past week, it abandoned its invite-only program, began promoting registration from its seen-by-millions-daily homepage and declared the network ready for brands. But in some cases, squatters have already claimed some valuable brand names on the network.

Burger King’s Google+ page

At Ad Age's Digital West conference last week, Christian Oestlien, group product manager for social advertising at Google, announced it's close to unveiling Google+ business profiles that will permit companies to create pages and circles like those of an individual user of the social network. It's an about-face from a July blog post in which Mr. Oestlien wrote that businesses should refrain from setting up profiles, noting a policy team was working to shut down profiles set up on behalf of companies. A number were killed, including those for Sesame Street, MTV and Mashable, all of which had enthusiastically tried to set up a presence on Google+ only to be told Google+ wasn't ready for them.

As it stands, only two marketers have gotten the official go-ahead to test the waters for Google+, automakers Ford and General Motors, whose beta status is identified by "test account" and "sneak preview" banners. But several unofficial business profiles have cropped up on Google+, set up surreptitiously by companies, fans or squatters registering the brand name.

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