Google Offers +1 Alternative To The Facebook Like Button

For almost a year now, the Facebook Like button has served as the most efficient show of approval by users online. From friends' statuses, to helpful websites and informative articles, to Like something equates to a vote for that particular slice of data. Now Google has developed its very own “public stamp of approval”, allowing Google users to recommend content to fellow searchers.

From yesterday (Wednesday 30th March) users in the US searching on the .com version of Google in English began to see the appearance of the the +1 icons alongside search results. The innovation will be rolled out to other language versions over the next few weeks.

If you can't wait until then however, you can always visit the +1 button Google Experiment page where you can force it to appear in your searches.

Whilst the Facebook Like allows users to express their approval of various media content, the +1 option from Google enables users to make and receive recommendations at the highly impressionable stage of search engine result listings. Providing you are logged in to your Google account, those +1'd results will show up wherever a fellow user has deemed the content to be of significant interest.

It doesn't stop at search either. Similar to the Facebook Like, +1 will be available to webmasters to put on their sites alongside the established Like, Tweet, and Stumble icons. This however, will be a matter of months rather than weeks according to Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief at Search Engine Land.

For paid search operators, the +1 will no doubt create something of a stir. The icons will accompany every ad listing, with no possibility of exclusion. While initial testing has produced a comparative rise in clickthrough rates, the true effects of the +1 for advertisers will remain to be seen.

Some PPC experts may be cautious as to the potential precedent set by the introduction of the +1 functionality, wary of the potential to get embroiled in a war of +1ing with fellow advertisers. Although Google will no doubt have a tight grip on potentially spammy activity, there is little they can do to prevent the incentivisation of +1ing by a brand or website.

The development of the +1 button signifies the increasingly confident strides towards social search being taken by Google. The concept of creating an inter-reliable community of users, on hand to recommend and assist others in the online sphere, is one which is being developed in greater detail by Google.

As Matt Cutts, Head of the Google Webspam team and one of the chief engineers who helped launch Google Social Search in 2009, explains:

“This change continues the evolution of social search, and it's a natural progression to improve the search experience.”