Gheebat and Mocking

Asking for forgiveness after making gheebah

Q: Gheebah is a very great sin. الغيبة اشد من الزنا.

So lots of people take it lightly and will still end up speaking bad about people and ask that person forgiveness afterwards etc.

When a person speaks bad regarding another person, if it falls under gheebat, the persons good deeds goes to the person he has spoken ill about. Now if he asks that person forgiveness, even if the person forgives him, will he get his good deeds back? Or will it be such that he can now ask Allah for forgiveness as the person has forgiven him, but he'll have to restart his good deeds?

I feel that people don't realize the gravity of the sin of gheebah, and take it very lightly. Please advise. I'm not an aalima so I am afraid if I'm thinking wrongly so I dislike saying anything regarding it incase I am erroneous in this regard.

Taubah from making gheebat (backbiting)

Q: Sometime ago I backbit and engaged in alot of idle talk about alot of people as I was not much of a practicing Muslim. Those people are not aware of my backbiting. Now I have turned back to Allah; I have repented alot and repented sincerely and realized my mistake.

It turns out that the people I used to backbite are alot since I dont remember them all can I make dua generally for all people that I backbit without taking their names or mentioning them? like "Ya Allah, forgive all the people that I backbit and raise them in ranks".

Also, will Allah Ta'ala forgive me? I am afraid if I tell those people that I backbit them it will cause some hatred in their hearts for me. So i decided not to approach them and repented sincerely. 

Is backbiting shirk?

Q: Does backbiting mean its shirk and after judgement we cannot go to paradise even after Nabi (sallallahu alaihi wasallam)'s intercession?

If I backbited and do not go to the person because of feeling shy, how can I tell this person? Can we do tauba so that Allah knows that we tried our best not to backbite? Can this be forgiven?.