Recently, Google has launched its +1 feature – one of the many changes that Google seems to be releasing weekly. Long gone are the days when Google search was a simple search page with the occasional «Google Doodle» to mix things up…
What’s the idea?
The idea behind it, is to enable users of Google to highlight a site as «pretty cool» or «you should check this out» to their friends and family. Google recognise that recommendations from friends that share your tastes, are more relevant than those of a complete stranger, and “+1” is their way of addressing that. It’s a similar idea to the «like» button for Facebook users, however its potential is far greater, and seems that it is one tiny part of the up-and-coming «GooglePlus».
What you need
Firstly, you need a Google account, with a public profile and a modern browser. To add/view +1’s, users must be signed in to their Google account – as soon as you’re logged in, you will start seeing the «+1» icon beside each search result. If you find that a particular site in the search results is useful, you can use the «+1» feature to make it known.
What does a «+1» do?
It basically acts as a flag to show your friends that you think a site is of particular interest or merit. If a site you previously +1’d is included in the results of a search by one of your friends, it acts as a «heads up» – letting them know that you think it’s worth checking out. See the image below:
If a site has received many +1’s, but from nobody in your network, the qty of +1’s will be displayed in its place, instead of the people who +1’d it.
Lets get to the point – does it help search engine ranking?
Currently, it does not factor into Google’s search algorithm (yet!), however this does not mean it won’t have an effect on a site’s ranking in Google. The importance of +1 could be compared to Facebook’s “Like” feature, or Twitter’s “Retweet”, and should not be overlooked. If it proves popular enough, it will be the biggest impact on web search in years.The initial phase of +1 will see it being used simply as a means of social influence; where it’s affect on a website is purely the additional traffic as a result of a friend recommending it. This in itself is no more powerful than sending an email to a friend (less effective actually – as a “+1” depends upon the site you recommended, actually showing up the results of a friend’s search on Google).
The secondary phase of the +1 will see it move into the “retweet” territory, whereby a particularly worthy site is given a “+1” by someone, which is then given another “+1” by another person in their network, and then is picked up and the +1 crosses to another contacts network and so on. It is at this point, where the +1 has jumped across networks due to a site’s popularity, and moves through networks in a similar sense to viral marketing.
So far, this is no more advanced than Facebook, or Twitter – however the real clever part comes when Google figure out how to use +1 to accurately influence search results, and will have a massive affect upon online searching.
Sounds good! Do I need to prepare my site in any way?
You don’t need to, but you can make it easier for your customers to recommend your site, by adding the “+1” button to your site (there’s a few different styles to choose from). If you are already a customer of InBusiness AS, we can add the “+1” button if you like. Get in touch if you’re interested.
The road ahead…
There’s probably a little while to go yet before +1 really comes into its own, but the potential is groundbreaking. It is in a phased release, with only 44 countries having access (new countries being added every day) and is not currently available on mobile. The whole thing relies upon people actually logging in and using their Google account (it’s not just for Gmail you know!), not to mention the resistance to Google previous attempts at social caused by privacy mess ups with Google Buzz!