Google Explores Re-Ranking Search Results Using +1

[jojy]

While not surprising, the move would bring Google’s search engine into the social networking era, while simultaneously creating a new avenue for blackhats to manipulate search results and potentially incurring the wrath of trust-busting authorities.

Is it time to put efforts on SEO or Google+?

“Google will study the clicks on +1 buttons as a signal that influences the ranking and appearance of websites in search results,” a spokesman wrote. “The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality. For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are related to quality.”

[wired.com ]

[mjtaylor]

Personally, I think the jury is out on Google+ as a social platform...

However, the 1+ button is really a separate issue. Yes, Google will use that signal, along with other social signals in ranking. But as always, the real way to affect whether your content is shared, "plussed," or given a link is to provide content that compels people to respond in some way. More and more, quality counts.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 6:30 pm (utc) on Aug 31, 2011]

[shazam]

It's for more than just ranking.

For the people legitimately using it, Google+ is really just another ideal tracking tool. What better way to easily keep track of users surfing habits and preferences. The sheeple just blindly give this info to g without a second thought. Meanwhile the webmasters help out by putting the spy code on their sites in the hopes of getting a treat.

It's really quite a brilliant data mining technique. Before now, it was a challenge to get direct access to webmasters data if they weren't using g analytics. Now they willingly put the g code on their sites and even pay people to make fake plusses.

[malinkam]

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System: The following message was spliced on to this thread from: http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4357433.htm [webmasterworld.com] by tedster - 10:30 pm on Aug 31, 2011 (EDT -4)

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came across this on cnn

interesting:

[cnn.com...]

So, who would click on +1 on spammy sites?