Earlier this month Google began unveiling its new ‘Google +1’ feature to certain pockets of webmasters. It should be reaching the Google community in full not long from now. ‘Google +1’ is going to enable users with Google Accounts to impact the searches of those found in their ‘networks’, very akin to Facebook’s ‘Like’ button. Early reports suggest that these networks are going to consist of any contacts which you may have in your Gmail or Google Chat contact books as well as users who follow a profile on Google Reader or Google Buzz. The main question out there for SEO Firms is what impact this new Google feature will have on the organic SERPs.
As it stands right now the +1 button is only available for organic results, but Google Manager Christian Oestlien has made mention that Google +1 will soon be a part of ads. The inclusion of AdWords aside, the early theories on ‘Google +1’s’ impacts on the SERPs is vague and untested. Many webmasters have speculated that an abundance of +1’s will lead to higher rankings per se, but not in any drastic sense. It is difficult to gauge how this will begin affecting search trends and techniques as the +1’s are relative to the networks of the user who ‘+1’ed’ the site. Thus what may impact the rankings for one user will have no effect on the results of another user. However, others have predicted Google will aggregate the majority of these +1’s and have them impact SERPs at large. Although both schools of thought remain relatively untested, Google’s main goal is to deliver personalized content to viewers based on their previously demonstrated preferences (Google Personals) and also based on popular websites. It is then safe to assume Google will allow these updates to influence the rankings but to what degree remains to be seen. The +1 Social feature is going to give Google a humongous data set to study and adjust their algorithm to as well so the immediate impacts of the button will certainly evolve one way or another as Google begins to analyze the data returned to them.
Also, remaining to be seen is if Google will allow users to link up their Google Accounts to other Social Media sites in order to align all of the items they are sharing across the board.
For SEOs and webmasters the biggest take away from this should be twofold; for one, the ‘Google +1’ widget button will be a must for any and all sites, and now is the time to begin bulking up a company’s social networks to ensure that they have the ‘infrastructure’ in place to garner plenty of +1’s. This should only reinforce my previous post that Social Networking sites are going to become the linkscape of the future. Webmasters will now be sure to load widgets from every social site at the bottom of your screen. With each link seemingly passing back a little juice to the original website, any site that doesn’t seek to do these things is not remaining proactive and in fact excluding themselves from what will be a great form of passive link building. One of the great things about the ‘+1’ update is that you will be able to track the usage of your site’s button through Google’s Webmaster Tools.
To be seen is if Google is possibly interested in entering the social network industry themselves. The company has already shown it has a propensity for branching out into different avenues of the technological economy. The +1 system could be the beginning of a shift where Google allows users to share experiences and data much the same way Facebook does, but perhaps on more sophisticated and user-friendly platforms that offer more utility than any of the current social sharing sites. Google hasn’t made any announcements about this, and already has a partnership with Twitter, but where money is to be made Google will certainly explore.
It’s too early to see how Google will allow the +1 button to impact searches, but it is safe to assume that they will affect them. I recommend using a few burner sites just to test their impacts and then apply those conclusions to the websites that matter most.
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