Google’s +1 response to Facebook ‘Likes’

I’m disappointed with myself for not picking the launch of Google’s new Google +1 button. 

It is such an obvious thing for Google to do and looking at it now, I’m wondering what took them so long?

As reported yesterday here on SmartCompany, Google’s +1 buttons will appear next to search results and Google Ads are about to be rolled out in earnest. It’s interesting there’s no -1 option! If you haven’t got anything nice to say, you’re not given the option to dislike a result or Ad.

You can sign up to join the fun and see what the fuss is about over at Google Experiment.

Here’s an example of what you’ll see after a Google search:

When you start +1’ing results, your friends will see that you’re endorsing results and their content. It also looks like they’ll also show you how many other +1’s have been given to a result by people you don’t know.

I’ve no idea why they’ve added them next to Ad’s. No one likes Ads. But you never know, it might start impacting your Google AdWords quality scores at some point. Time will tell.

In your Google Account there’s a new +1 Tab for you to see what you’ve endorsed:

I like this feature as it’s a way of social bookmarking as well, so you can find sites you’ve +1’d earlier.

There’s no official word that I can find from Google on whether +1 likes are going to influence ranking positions, but there’s some really fascinating research being conducted by several influencial SEO experts, including Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz.

Fishkin’s research is showing how correlation between ranking positions and social activity (tweets, Facebook Likes and posts, etc). So you’d have to argue that ranking results will start to be influenced.

In spite of the fuss last year around Google Instant, Google Quickview, etc, that was just fiddling around the edges. This new feature is a game changer for both the SEO industry and business.

Speaking of Games, obviously there will be lots of SEO’s out there who are going to try and find a way of gaming this new system of ‘likes’.

But I agree with many other commentators that it will be very difficult to game the system by setting up multiple Google Accounts and liking yourself in the hope you get better rankings, etc. I reckon Google’s done its homework and will be looking at the age of a Google Account, how many products are in it, how often you log in to it, etc. Google will know the difference between a fake account and a real one.

I’ll leave you with this quote shared by a good friend of mine, Ivan Lim:

“In my opinion this is why inbound marketing is going to overtake SEO as the primary function of SEO professionals. Engaging across social channels to get links, shares, likes, comments and +1’s is going to be the future for generating organic traffic to your site. Not just from Google but these channels are increasingly driving significant volumes of traffic in their own right.”

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Chris Thomas heads up Reseo, a search engine optimisation  company which specialises in creating and maintaining Google AdWords campaigns and Search Engine Optimisation campaigns for a range of corporate clients.