How Google Friend Connect will affect SEO

by Patrick Altoft on May 13, 2008

Google has just launched Google Friend Connect, a service that allows site owners to integrate social applications onto their pages just by cut & pasting some code.

The service is pretty big news for bloggers and anybody who has a fair amount of traffic and wants to make their site more social. Personally I have 2500 RSS readers and will be using the service to allow you to rate posts and give feedback. I might even create a fan wall where readers can sign up to be Blogstorm fans.

Giving Google access to ratings, comments and reviews of my posts could be pretty helpful in terms of SEO if Google starts to integrate this into the algorithm. If they know that 50 trusted Google users have recommended a post on my blog then it will rank better than another post that has received very poor ratings.

This is the biggest step yet towards social data being included in search. Check out the video below and view some example sites. I have included some screenshots so you can see just how important this could be.

Google Friend Connect lets you grow traffic by easily adding social features to your website. With just a few snippets of code, you get more people engaging more deeply with your site.

Attract more visitors. Visitors bring along friends from social networks like Facebook, orkut, and others to interact on your site.

Enrich your site with social features. Choose engaging social features from a catalog of gadgets provided by Google and the OpenSocial developer community.

No programming whatsoever. Just copy and paste snippets of code into your site, and Google Friend Connect does the rest.

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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }

Yannis 14 May 2008 at 2:42 am: I was at the Google Friend sign-up page… they are not just taking any website, they are looking for traffic?
deepti 14 May 2008 at 1:35 pm: very nice information.
Allan 15 May 2008 at 6:22 pm: Really interesting points about what might go into the future iterations of the algorithms.
Uğur SAMSA 16 May 2008 at 8:23 am: Good project. I won’t put the codes on sidebar. I think, I will put on a page.

My English not well. Sorry to my English
Nate Nead 20 May 2008 at 6:07 pm: Great post. I’m surprised I missed this in my earlier reading this morning. This should help with several of the applications some of us are working on.
hypotheekrente 20 May 2008 at 9:24 pm: Like the project very much, although they announced it because the competitors will come with a product soon that looks like it. How soon will this be integrated in many websites? Like the social media interaction though!

Regards, Aislin
Search Engine Optimization Journal 21 May 2008 at 4:51 pm: We have been seeing so many negatives about this but it is refreshing and interesting to see a positive. Thanks for drawing it all out!
Dominic 22 May 2008 at 5:28 pm: Wow this is sweet i am going to use this for my company.
Recycling Mike 21 Jun 2008 at 11:48 am: This is welcome news to people who would like to expand their sites’ audience. We’ve just started a blog in our company site, and it seems, from your article, social features like Google Friend Connect is a viable option, along with other traditional SEO and Web 2.0 activities, to build a blog’s readership base. Thanks.
Yarfin 29 Jan 2009 at 4:06 am: We just added Google Friend Connect to our hyper-local site. We have a plan in the pipeline to add reviews and ratings to many pages. This will be the next revolution online. Google never releases things without a full plan in mind. What out for more options and power.

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Vern Gosdin 27 Mar 2009 at 9:26 pm: Nice blog.

May I suggest you integrate it here so we can sign-up and see our picture appear like magic in your box-o friends.

Just started playing with it on Vern Gosdin’s website.

Pros:
1. You can edit the confirmation page that pops up when you login meaning you can quickly tell new users how easy it is for them to tell their friends about your site. This can mean BIG numbers.
2. Entice casual visitors to easily sign-up with one click.

Cons:
1. Can’t export the leads. Actually as far as I know you can’t feed and read RSS but knowing Goolge this should be quickly resolved. If someone knows something, do say please!
Colleen Dick 03 Apr 2009 at 6:38 pm: First Link is broken! ???
Hypotheek 10 Jun 2009 at 10:50 am: Nice application and looks like its easy to integrate. Using this would certainly attract more visitors. Can’t wait to use it on some of my websites. But i find what Yannis said a bit disturbing. Is it true that they’re not accepting every website???