Adding the Google +1 button

June 1, 2011, Google announced the launch of their much anticipated Google +1 button. This is a huge step towards adding the social networking aspects search results, something that the underdog Alexa has used to increase their ranking and statistics. Google +1 however isn’t a client side program but a server side piece of code that relies on visitors choosing to +1 your site or content much like a Facbook ‘like’ button. In other words, it’s good and could potentially increase your popularity with Google and perhaps your page rank. Of course Google wouldn’t tell you that though.

Before you decide to add the Google +1 button to your website, you might be asking yourself , ok why do I want to do this? Here are two reasons that Google provides.

How does +1 affect search results?
Obviously, Google +1 is a powerful tool for website owners. +1 helps people discover relevant content—a website, a Google search result, or an ad—from the people they already know and trust. Adding the +1 button to your pages lets users recommend your content, knowing that their friends and contacts will see their recommendation when it’s most relevant—in the context of Google search results.

When a signed-in Google user is searching, your Google search result snippet may be annotated with the names of the user’s connections who’ve +1′d your page. If none of a user’s connections has +1′d your page, your snippet may display the aggregate number of +1′s your page has received.

Does +1 affect my site’s performance in search?
Content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers. For example, a movie review from an expert is useful, but a movie review from a friend who shares your tastes can be even better. Because of this, +1’s from friends and contacts can be a useful signal to Google when determining the relevance of your page to a user’s query. This is just one of many signals Google may use to determine a page’s relevance and ranking, and we’re constantly tweaking and improving our algorithm to improve overall search quality. For +1′s, as with any new ranking signal, we’ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals affect search quality.

So there you have it from Google themselves, and if you do a little clicking around Sellopolis, you will see we use it, so feel free to +1 us

Here is a link to the Create a custom +1 button page, where you will find the code plus if you want to learn more about the Google +1 button and program.