Google’s code blog had an interesting post last month on +1′ing their API Docs in order to help programmers remember valuable information. It didn’t receive a lot of coverage – the +1 button hasn’t been placed on a lot of sites yet and the post was directed at people who code with Google’s API’s.
But for those of us who don’t code this raises an interesting question that hasn’t been talked about much on the web. A quick search reveals only a few sites talking about the +1 button as a social bookmarking tool; most people just see it as a competitor to Facebook’s like button. Yet I see it as a product closer to Delicious than Facebook, and the research that I’ve done on the two makes me very excited and hopeful that Google +1 will stick around.
First off, the +1 button does not give users the ability to tag pages. All clicking the button will do is add to the count that appears next to the button (if the website has a counter button) and save the +1 to a page on your Google profile. This is a negative aspect because it makes organization difficult, but is also a plus because it saves time… Tagging things takes a few extra seconds, and a lot of people just won’t do something that involves effort. I see it as a small net benefit; I can generally tell from a page title what it is I’ve saved.
Second, the +1′s you record are dofollow (meaning that search engines count them as links). Delicious and a lot of other popular social bookmarking services have no-follow links. This is, in my opinion, the impact that the +1 button will have on search; Google will crawl your public Google profile page and count the +1′s to sites as backlinks. +1′s are dofollow on both standard Google profiles and profiles on Google Plus. Furthermore, profiles on Google Plus are dofollow which means that expanding your network adds backlinks to your profile, which in turn bosts the linking power of your +1′s. A large network impacts your ability to influence search with your profile.
The real challenge for Google will be getting people to use their profiles as a bookmarking tool. Some Google Code developers have already figured out that they can use the +1 button to save items for future reference. In my opinion, the user interface needs to be changed so that it’s more than just a list and people need to be able to organize items once they’ve saved them. I would also like to see a tab added in Google’s Data Liberation section for exporting +1 activity.
Author: Brandon Schwartz is the owner of Boomajoom.com, a San Jose SEO company. He is also the editor of Legal Bulletin, the best law blog on the net. Boomajoom.com helps businesses around the country reach more customers online. Check out his site for more information and for occasional blog posts on SEO and social media.
My thoughts on Google +1
Clearly lots of benefits for the webmaster, but what’s in it for the punter?
A tremedous revolution is Google + 1 I have read many theories of whot it will change the search results and all seo work… what do you think about it?