How Google Friend Connect will affect SEO
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.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
Read the 16 comments below, or add your own!
I was at the Google Friend sign-up page… they are not just taking any website, they are looking for traffic?
very nice information.
Really interesting points about what might go into the future iterations of the algorithms.
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
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.
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
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!
Wow this is sweet i am going to use this for my company.
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.
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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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!
First Link is broken! ???
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???
This is good info. And I think im going to use friend connect now
looks promising
hmmm…this is an old post…any updates on how google friend connect actually helps SEO? I don’t see it integrated on your site yet…thanks
Well, since the mayday upadte of google, rankings are very strange. So it’s difficult to walk the right seo path this time.
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