By now I’m quite weary of the manifold failed attempts by Google to enter the social media arena. We had:
- Google Answers
- Google Bookmarks
- Google SearchWiki
- Google SideWiki
- Jaiku
- Google Wave
- Google Buzz
to name just the most known failed or abandoned Google social media services. As with most of the previous offerings, last week’s Google +1 started in a clumsy beta or rather alpha version. I didn’t even want to test it at first, but then all the search and SEO publications frantically reported about it so I felt compelled to give it a try.
I encountered many difficulties, and it took me two hours just to “get it”.
Google +1 is way too complicated right now and it was quite buggy when I tried it over recent days. The Google +1 page itself redirected me to 404 pages in German (I’m in Germany) despite browser and Google preferences.
When Google +1 finally worked for me, I tried to use it extensively but to no avail. Nobody has noticed my +1s it seems, and I barely see any by others.
Still, everybody is writing about it and the list of resources is already huge. Furthermore, there are high profile people in the SEO industry who actually suggest we jump into it. So to provide a more objective resource, I decided to compile the links and to enable you to make your own choices.
Google +1 on and by Google itself
- Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Introducing the +1 button
- Google +1 Button
- Google Experimental Search
- About the +1 button : +1s – Profiles Help
- Google +1 Privacy Policy – Google Privacy Center
- +1 your website – Google
- +1 on non-Google sites : +1s – Profiles Help
How to use Google +1
- How To Turn On Google +1
- Enable Google +1 for your account right now
- How To Get Google +1 Buttons For Your Website
Analysis and overview
- Google +1 – What You Need to Know
- Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button
- What Site Owners Need to Know About Google +1
- Google +1 Analysis: A War for Social Data and Your Attention
- » Google +1, what is it really?
- Everything You Need to Know About Google’s +1
- Google+1 Button (Slideshare presentation)
Opinion (pros and cons)
- Google +1 And The Rise of Social SEO
- Google +1: What normal person would ever use it?
- +1 Is The Loneliest Number
- Google + 1 = Fail | Why Google +1 will Fail
- Google +1 is Missing a Social Carrot
- Sure, I Could Join a Google-Based Social Network — But Why?
- Google +1: The New SearchWiki?
- Have Google really misunderstood social communities?
Google +1 SEO resources
- Google +1, will it succeed? The experts don’t agree
- Discussion: Impact of Google +1?
- The new Google +1 button and the Effects on SEO
- Google’s +1 A Potential Boon To Paid Search Marketers
- To Like or not to Like Google +1? That is the clichéd SEO question.
- Google +1: Not Really Social
- +1 – Google’s fusion of paid search and social
- 10+ Points about Google +1
- Google +1: the pieces of the social puzzle are coming together
- How Google Will Likely Handle +1 Scammers
- Thoughts on what the Google +1 button means for SEO
- What Google’s +1 Means for Facebook
- Is Google’s +1 Search Results Feature Useful for Marketers?
- Google Plus 1 – Social Sentiment as an SEO Factor
Miscellaneous resources
- Google’s +1 Button (links)
- Press Coverage: Google’s +1 underwhelms agencies
- Google +1 is a scheme. (humorous/paranoid take on +1)
So I guess you can’t ignore Google +1; but equally, you don’t have to hurry up and amass +1 votes even though Google announced that they will count as a ranking factor (in contrast to Google SearchWiki, for example).
One year from now will see whether Google +1 is still around, and even if it is, whether it’s actually alive and not used only by bots.
The Facebook Like button depends on the biggest social network there is. There is no Google social network and there is no such thing as a search network; even Blekko relies on Facebook Likes to socialise search results.
So the +1 button must offer something of real value to succeed at all. Only significant traffic and Google ranking improvements will motivate webmasters to introduce it along with the Facebook and Twitter buttons.
Really useful round up of all the +1 coverage – and thanks for including my blog too, Tad! Now off to catch up on the posts I missed!
Great coverage about google +1… Hope it doesn’t fail as miserably as the other attempt of google for getting into Social Media!!
I’m happy to see that my expose got mentioned here.(Under Misc. Resources)
I had fun with that post mostly with crayola writing my Google Analytics Pages.
Joanna: You’re welcome. Great point and well explained. I had to add it.
Sudarshan: I hope so too, I’d really like to social proof by my industry peers and colleagues right within search results.
Alex: It’s a hilarious post. Like every good parody it’s not far from the truth and indeed one of the articles in my list raised a similar question.
After investing resources in Wave, as well as some of the other offerings mentioned, only to be told, “Opps. We changed out mind.” There’s no incentive to pursue this immediately
Google is entitled to do what’s best for their business. But isn’t using people as expendable lab rats and treating our time as their renewable resource at least somewhat evil?
Mark: Google is of course no charity so money talks.
Everything seems to be quite complicated. I’m not sure I want to want to “Get recommendations for the things that interest you” by people who knows me, because I don’t want them to really know all the things I’m interested in…. Why should I have a public Google profile? What about privacy??
I feel like investing energy and layout space for google +1 will still be less effective than Facebook likes, because it will not have the potential to propagate through a social network.
Really this button will be very effective and add new feature to rank on google than just making backlinks. This will also boost ranking of unique and useful content in SERPs.
Nice blog post.
THanks
Adam: Indeed many people voice this doubt but I’m not sure it’s really a disadvantage. Personally I can +1 many more sites than I can “like” or “tweet” as I’m not bothering anybody directly with it. I’m not flooding, I’m not sending off topic or obnoxious stuff to people who might get offended. Thus +1 is often the better option exactly because there is no social network yet.
seomagnate: I expect that to happen or at least I hope. We’ll see whether Google manages to motivate enough people for the ranking signal to make sense.
Google has really promoted a lot google +1, remember the impact on it to your site if you Google + your site. But personally i still believe google should just focus on their field and stay out in the field of social media.
Exactly the kind of resources I’ve been looking for. It’s a shame that Google +1 sucks so bad, it’s useful for SEO, but I wouldn’t use it otherwise. Google has invested too much in Google +1 to drop it, so I think they’re just going to keep pushing that dead horse until we all conform.