Thoughts on what the Google +1 button means for SEO
Google has announced the +1 button which allows users to vote for specific search results, AdWords ads and (in a few months) pages on your website. The button is a vote to say you like the page, think it’s cool and would want to recommend it to your friends.
The key about this button is that your friends only see the recommendations when they are searching for the same thing you were searching for. This is in sharp contrast to Twitter and Facebook where you have to send the link when you are interested in it rather than when your friend is looking for the same thing. For news and current topical results Twitter & Facebook sharing is great, for ecommerce sites and non-topical content it doesn’t really work as well.
Google has built a business around showing users adverts and search results relevant to what they are searching for right now and this is why they have been able to monetise so much better than social networks.
There is a long standing argument that user data is easy to fake. It isn’t. Google has over 200 million Gmail users around the world and 133,000 people are using the Chrome extension to block sites from search results just 6 weeks after it launched.
In the tech community a lot of people have complained about the poor quality of Googles results but the vast majority of the complaints were constructive criticism – people want Google to get this right. If these people are willing to complain about things & download Chrome extensions then they will also be willing to give a quick +1 for pages and search results they find useful.
Our recommendation is for all sites to add the +1 button when it’s available in just the same way they would add Facebook and Twitter buttons.
Google has failed at adding social layers before with Bookmarks, Searchwiki and Buzz but something tells me this time they might just have got it right. Even if the results are only used for testing algorithms (like the Chrome extension was) rather than actually influencing results this is clearly an important step forwards.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Will certainly be interesting to see how this affects PPC click-through rates.
“Read more about Thoughts on what the Google +1 button means for SEO by Blogstorm SEO Blog”
I have to disagree, this would be even easier to game than links. Not everyone has a website but most people have a google account, you could buy them like crazy. Mechanical turk ?
@PaulB – You could certainly buy ‘likes’ but I’m not sure that would help much. The key issue here is that you only see the +1 from those in your social circle. The majority of people you’ve described are unlikely to have much influence and/or extensive social circles…
I agree that this looks to be a very good move by google.
Have been trying to test it out myself, though, but not able to see the +1 button yet. Was wondering if there is a delay in being rolled out to the UK?
Well most people who will sell +1′s from their account will sell lots of them – I think it would be extremely easy to isolate these people algorithmically and remove their votes from having any effect on rankings.
If someone +1′s a payday loan site and a casino site, their votes lose all seo benefit. If they +1 x number of ecommerce sites not from their own country, same.
I’d go one further and remove India, Philippines, Pakistan etc from passing any benefit also – we all know a lot of the spam is going to originate from there.
Then rule out everyone who doesn’t have a credit card on file, or who hasn’t sent x number of emails over the past month, etc etc
If Google do this smartly, it definitely won’t be easy to game
The thing about asking people to +1 something, if you ask them by email then Google can just read it out of gmail anway.
“Read more about Thoughts on what the Google +1 button means for SEO by Blogstorm SEO Blog”
lol, please remove tinfoil hat
lets wait for the STREAM of spammy +1 actions…
i agree with what paul says
if it start acting as a major component in search engine ranking than people will start spamming it.
Google must have planned something for this scenario i am sure
I am unable to see this button yet.
@william
they have just announced it, it will be released later
Is it just me? or is everyone thinking – massive facebook rip off haha! :]
I think I will do a lot of surfing under a proxy…really hate Google watching and checking everything.
@Ian, I think google had a like/recommendation system back in the early 2000′s by way of smileys so if anything FB is copying then (although I must admit FB did do it much better)
I doubt +1′s are going to be for friends circles only, I think that people you’ve never met on the other side of the world will influence your results via their +1′s eventually either directly via the +1 or indirectly by affecting the search algorithm.
At the moment I can’t see it working, who googles somethings and then recommends it before even having checked it out? and who would come back to the SERPS to rate something after they’ve moved away to the website? Not many i don’t think.
when they roll out inpage +1′s it will gain some traction and I think it is a major factor for ecommerce sites.
I also don’t think google will allow full blown manipulation of this, they’re too smart. When you +1 something they will take a heap of things into consideration such as your activity on gmail, youtube, age of account, amount of +1′s you’ve given out, etc etc. +1′s from new gmail accounts with minimal activity and email contacts will be so heavily discounted they will not be worth the effort. Kinda like spammy linkfarms now.
I agree with David, i can’t see Matt Cutts allowing something to go through if it was going to be easily spammed. The amount of access and data they have available for individual accounts will give them plenty of background on ‘authoritative’ +1s vs spammy ones.
The votes of +1 button will be used in google search. So, it’s better to do as google like and wait for the result.
i feel like google is turning into big brother watching us and telling us what to do…scary stuff
@Aptus
Wake up man, they are already “big brothering” you for years now. If you don’t want that, you better stop using google!
It will be a decent indicator for a few years – that way they can incentive websites to push hard for +1s, which in turn gets their code onto even more sites and accumulates more data.
Do you really think that Google +1 will hep to be high ranked in SERP?Nowadays people sell online facebook fans anf Twitter followers…Google +1 will be also for sell.
Google are so clever, What on-line marketers haven’t completely realised is that they affect internet trends. I believe marketers are responsible for the rise in blogs as its marketers who figured that they were useful when marketing on line started to create blogs that ordinary users would be interested in etc. etc. What Google have done is created a social network to compete with Facebook, then they add a function within this network which could or could not (doesn’t matter either way for point I’m making) affect SEO. What this leads to is all the on-line marketers out there signing up to Google+ and therefore starting the trend towards Google+. Well done Google.
@ Friv from SEO point of view, there are two possibilities that improve rankings in SERPs,
1) Google+ links are Dofollow and and if you create a relevant circle then they will surely boost you up!
2) Google is now including few more social factors just like Bing do! And I am getting pretty good results from them! For else things I hate Google +
I’m certain google+ will have its SEO benefits, but is anyone actually using it?
Just logged in to my account have around 150ish in my circles mostly from the digital industry and the last persons upadte was 3 days ago.
I would go so far to say that Google+ was a mess, but the pre-poster is right, the most people still use facebook, google plus is more for the geeks. I also don’t really notice an advantage for SEO with this button (being clicked) on my sites.
Compete with facebook? 850 M vs 5 M. Google+ is a joke.
Is there a study focusing on the effects of the Google Plus Button (number of clicks) on SERPs?
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April 22, 2011 at 6:22pm