Google +1 Button For Websites Coming Wednesday 1st June

[tristanperry]

[searchengineland.com...]

It’s official. Google’s +1 button for web sites will be coming tomorrow. A launch partner accidentally tipped the news of the release to TechCrunch, and Google’s since confirmed with me officially that it will be happening.

Google tells me that any site will be able to to add the +1 button code to their site as of tomorrow, through a self-serve process. The company says a full blog post and more details will be posted tomorrow.

[Tallon]

Google's reach is far too big and they control far too much net traffic for my tastes, the last thing I will do as a webmaster will promote their services so that their reach can be even larger.

Count me in as a -1 for this idea.

[Reno]

Count me in as a -1 for this idea.

Ditto.

[Swanny007]

I won't touch this with a 10-foot pole. I just finally got all my sites off Feedburner and Analytics. And I got rid of Google site-search on some sites too. Now if I could just bring myself to drop AdSense my sites would be Google-free :-)

No thanks +1, you have too much data on people as it is.

[ChrisWilson]

Anyone have the link to this to read more about it?

[maximillianos]

Torn about this one. I think it can be a great signal for sites that are legit. But I can see lots of abuse from overseas content farm teams that already have hundreds (if not thousands) of cheap labor content copiers working the net. They can simply vote up there stuff, just like they have been voting down their competitors in serps.

[JoePublisher]

I put the +1 button on my site today, I actually made space in the design for it two weeks ago, a little space next to the recommend button and tweet button. The +1 button now adds a little splash of colour which also helps draw attention to the box, which is nice ...

Just saying ;)

[tedster]

Anyone have the link to this to read more about it?

Add +1 to your pages [google.com]

[netmeg]

I added it fairly easily to my WP sites. Of course, it wouldn't be Google if they didn't throw a fly in the ointment - not only is the button plug ugly, but the sizes offered are (I'm sure deliberately) set to NOT fit the standard of the tweet and like buttons - at least not the horizontal ones, that I use. The small one is way small, and the next size up is too big - no doubt to draw attention from the other ones.

[koan]

set to NOT fit the standard of the tweet and like buttons

The medium size seems to be the same height as the usual tweet and like buttons.

[Shatner]

Who is actually going to click on this button? I can't imagine any scenario where anyone would want to.

[koan]

Anyone else having problems with the count box background being transparent? It doesn't look good.

[JoePublisher]

got my first +1

(I use the "medium" size, and although it is 1px taller than the tweet and recommend button it blends well enough in with them)

[netmeg]

I use the horizontal button, and the medium size looked way out of alignment to me.

Who'll click on it? I dunno. People like to click on things. You can put up the lamest, shallowest page full of useless content you can think of, and some dweebs will come along and click a Like button on it. (I know; I've tried it)

If Google needs to be reassured that people like my sites, then I'll plop the buttons on them. I got room. And people love my stuff.

[JoePublisher]

@netmeg I have the horizontal buttons showing the count for all three, in the order shown below, with around 20px gap between them. They all appear on the same 'line', but in actual fact they are all in a separate <div> box without borders and separate 'padding' and 'width' to make them 'sit' right - they are then enclosed in a larger <div> box to contain them and place them on the page.

This way they 'sit' right and look ok, but as I say the +1 is definitely either 1px or 2px taller than the others and I use the wording 'recommend' instead of 'like'.

recommend___Tweet___+1

[JoePublisher]

The argument about if google thinks your site and content is a failure because no one has clicked on a +1 button is only valid if you don't also have a 'like' button or 'tweet' button ... or a comments section or forum section or any other indicators (like old fashioned links from authoritative sites) that show your content is of 'high quality'.

You are also well within your rights to not add any social aspects (like 'buttons') to your site, if you think this is the right call for your site - of course it will still be of a high quality, if it is written well.

But if you choose to use social indicators on your site and a page has been 'liked' by 50 facebook users and/or 50 twitter users, while the +1 has no one clicking on it, who has failed? ....

I have no problem if the +1 button doesn't work out, it will be removed from my site because google failed to provide the incentive for my users to click on it, not the other way around.

In his latest interview Eric Shmidt said his biggest regret (read failure) in his time as Google CEO was "social". It may be google's biggest failure, but it isn't mine ... nor is it twitter's or facebook's.

There is a lot riding on google with the +1 ... all I am doing is backing a horse that has proved itself in the past. If it fails, I still have an each way bet on with the other two big players, as I personally see 'social' indicators as a major part of 'user satisfaction scores' in the future of the internet and as one measure of a sites quality. YMMV

[Shatner]

All of my pages now have the +1 button on them. It's right next to the Facebook Like button.

My Facebook like buttons get around 100 + likes each. Total them up on all my pages and I probably got around 10,000 Facebook likes today. Meanwhile, when it comes to the Google +1 button sitting right next to it... I have yet to get a single +1 from any user.

Again I ask... who is going to click on this button? Why am I bothering with it?

The only way anyone is going to get any likes on this button is by gaming it.

[SEOtop10]

As the webmaster, I can put a common Facebook Like button and everyone likes the same thing accumulating the Likes.

For +1, they are liking the particular page.

[JoePublisher]

@Shatner, I am in exactly the same position, with exactly the same feelings about +1 ... I also don't think it is thought out properly, they are putting 'the cart before the horse'.

Facebook had the social structure in place first - so people could join a centralised and common network group, and THEN they introduced a way of sharing information people found interesting on the internet within this network. Twitter is the same.

Google on the other hand have put a way for people to share information they have found interesting on the internet, but there is no incentive to join a common and centralised social network group to share it in. All their 'social' efforts, including their web properties, are still disjointed. The only way for +1 to work is if they 'quickly' introduce the social side of the equation and tie all of their social properties into 'one'.

This is what I am betting on ... they certainly have the means to produce a facebook 'killer', if they do it right, but WHEN is it going to be introduced? Before webmasters pull the +1 button off their sites because no one is using it? This is the big question, can google have kept their 'all in one' social app this secret for this long? There are always rumours, but this thing needs to roll out 'soon'. This is why I am putting the button on my site, but if they don't get the horse back in front of the cart, and quickly, this is also why it will be pulled.

@SEOtop10 if you go to the expanded section on the page where you get the +1 button code you can add in any url in that you want the button to +1 ... this means if you add in your home page url for example (which is what I have done for one +1 button on my site). You can then put this +1 button code (with your chosen url) on any and every page and it will only vote up the home page etc. and not the page it is on. So theoretically you could even put your facebook 'Page' url in to vote it up through +1 on your site ...

[levo]

Be careful, if you add the code dynamically (jquery/loadscript, async etc.), and the browser is not supported (iPhone, iPad) the plusone code replaces the whole content, and your visitors get a clean white empty page.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Can a site hold it's own in serps if it is 100% pooplet free?

I added +1 to my site but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to mean more traffic. The button will have to earn it's keep quickly, it's costing me page speed.

I set my +1 to rate the current page but am wondering if they should all name the index page as the +1 url.

[JoePublisher]

@Sgt_Kickaxe - perhaps not in the far future SERPs, but certainly for the next 36 months, yes ... but by then 'poplet' integration in the browser bar will be far more common and utilised by visitors, meaning the website itself will not need to carry the extra code - Bing is already putting the facebook like button in as standard, will they carry 'twitter' and '+1' for their rivals, and will Chrome do the same for facebook? Only time will tell.

However, I think vastly popular sites with content only available to 'subscribers' and the increasing number of sites moving over to subscription based models (who block search engines from crawling their inner content) will be fine ... here word of mouth through 'social' will help increase membership, however it is the 'content quality' which will be the main draw to these 'walled gardens', the SERP's not so much.

So in reverse to your question ... is the biggest problem for search engines the acceptance (however reluctantly) of an internet which is no longer 'free' for the best content?

At the moment advertiser only based models of payment cannot pay for the best writers, and turn a decent profit, and UGC can only compete for so long if professional writers and skilled content creators start hiding away their content - i.e. the New York Times blocks content sharing from the HuffPo etc. and they take copyright infringements more seriously. If subscription based models take off then the best content on the internet will get 'removed' from the SERPs, and perhaps only 'shared' and found through 'social'? Therefore 'social' could be the death of SERPs?

[edited by: JoePublisher at 11:54 am (utc) on Jun 2, 2011]

[indyank]

If subscription based models take off then the best content on the internet will get 'removed' from the SERPs, and perhaps only 'shared' and found through 'social'? Therefore 'social' could be the death of SERPs?

How can the subscription based models ensure that content can be found only through social sites? When it can be found through social sites, why can't SERPs discover them?

[SEOtop10]

Thanks JoePulisher. I will definitely try and it will be useful indeed.

[JoePublisher]

SERP's cannot discover blocked content, but if a user is a 'subscriber' and they have found great content within the 'walled garden' they can 'like' it or 'tweet' it after reading it and still share it with friends, friends who can then have the choice of joining as a subscriber (or a small one off payment) to read the info people within their network on social sites have recommended ... by passing the need for SERPs.

But this is only on the condition that people on the internet start accepting that the best content is no longer 'free' and are prepared to pay to see what their friends like. It is just one theory on the future of the internet ...

[indyank]

lol... SEOtop10, you can add a +1 for a page on another domain....

[indyank]

and they have found great content within the 'walled garden' they can 'like' it or 'tweet' it after reading it and still share it with friends

when they can like or tweet it, SERPS can discover them too...

[JoePublisher]

Yes, but the SERPs are playing secondary to the 'subscriber' spreading information about internet content, (the reverse of what it is today) and if the search engine can not see the page to read it and judge it how can they place it highly in their SERPs ... the only way that would happen is if the search engines profile the 'subscriber' and peg them as an authority whose opinion should be trusted within the SERPs.

[SEOtop10]

Thanks guys. I had missed the advanced options. However, this does make it ridiculous.

I see a +1 button on a page with valuable content and click on it but I might have voted for some junk content. Duh?

[JoePublisher]

Yeah, I worked that one out too SEOtop10 ... I can see a whole spate of +1 buttons being placed through black hat means and another reason to encourage hacking attempts. Unlike the facebook or twitter buttons the +1 is supposedly designed to directly influence (however small) the google SERPs. The only saving grace is the actual flaw in the +1 button, namely no one is likely to click on it ... haha