Google’s been trying to figure out how to get better search results for a while now. And to achieve that they’re introducing “+1” (Plus 1) which will be a lot like the Facebook Like buttons.
I think Danny is right when he said Google’s +1 is it’s new PageRank. I think +1 will be a major component of PageRank going forward. But even beyond that it will circumvent traditional PageRank by injecting recommendations from your +1 social network into your search results. If you want to do well in Google I think it’s important to really get your mind around +1 and be as aggressive about implementing it as possible.
If you want to be one of the first to implement +1 buttons on your website, here’s the form to be notified…
I am curious to see how this works out for porn sites, since I doubt a lot of people will hit the +1 button if their name is being displayed to all their friends in their network. What I understood from the articles, you can’t +1 a listing anonymously.
I can already see it now, we’ll have spam with Indian “SEO consultants” offering 1000 people clicking on +1 for only $100! It’s so open to abuse it’s silly. Oh Joy…
But thanks for the article, it does make for good reading.
I don’t get one thing, is this alive or not yet? I read somewhere that it was suppose to go live yesterday but I don’t see any change to my search results…
Personally, I think it will be difficult to game the system. You’ll need to be incredibly sophisticated to appear to be a real user to Google. I mean Google has so much clickstream data - they’ve got Google Toolbar, they’ve got search data, they’ve got Blogspot, they’ve got db access to Twitter, etc. I’d put money on the fact that they’ve put systems in place to discredit anything that doesn’t look like a human being. They’re going to want to see people who are connected to other people. If they want to know what the hottest bareback sites are they’re going to figure out who is part of the bareback community and see which sites they do +1 on. An Indian in Deli who a few moments ago was doing +1 on low quality mortgage pages, and herbal Cialis pages, and Kansas City real estate page will stick out like a sore thumb. They’ve got SO much data they can easily throw away 80% of it and keep the 20% that’s clearly genuine…
Exactly. I was thinking the same thing that if anyone can tell, it will be Google. And not only will this stick out like a sore thumb they will use who they find doing this and degrade them in other ways.
Google has put out a memo saying EVERYONE’S bonus this year is tied to how well the company does with integrating social media into their offerings. I have a feeling +1 is a big deal with them and they now have the focus to really get it right.