Member Avatar for pritaeas

Am wondering if anyone here has already used the Google Plus One button on their website, and whether it is having a positive effect on search results (only for google.com at this time).

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Brief, practical recap and what’s changed since this thread started in 2011.

Google introduced the +1 button as a way to surface personal recommendations in search and said it would “start to look at +1’s as one of the many signals” — but the emphasis was on personalization and helping results stand out (annotations that can lift click‑through), not on turning +1s into a magic ranking lever. Google: Introducing the +1 button. (developers.google.com)

Google also gave webmasters reporting for +1s (Webmaster Tools / Google Analytics) so owners could measure CTR and how recommendations changed behaviour; that was always framed as measurement of traffic/engagement rather than a guaranteed ranking boost. If you were looking for “actual numbers” like asked, the official reporting was the best source back then. +1 reporting in Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics. (developers.google.com)

Over time Google’s public position hardened: social likes/shares are not treated as standalone ranking signals in the core algorithm (Google spokespeople repeatedly explained social metrics are unreliable and, where visible, social content can rank as content but social counts themselves don’t directly boost a page). That explains why early hopes that a flood of +1s would lift rankings didn’t pan out. (See Matt Cutts’ summary on social signals.) (searchengineland.com)

Critical update for anyone reading this years later: Google shut down consumer Google+ and turned off Google+ integrations (legacy +1 buttons and related APIs stopped serving in March–April 2019). Sites should remove old +1 code and replace it with modern sharing or the native Web Share API; keep investing in content, links, structured data, and page experience for SEO gains instead of chasing obsolete widgets. [Google+ integrations/API shutdown and Project Strobe announcement]. (developers.google.com)

If old +1 markup is still on the site, remove it (example of the legacy bits to delete):

<script src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js"></script>
<div class="g-plusone" data-size="medium"></div>

Post‑script: was right about personalization being the main effect, and ’s “don’t get left behind” instinct made sense in 2011 — but today the actionable takeaways are different: remove defunct +1 code, measure incoming social traffic and backlinks, and focus on signals Google still uses.

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Member Avatar for twiss

I haven't done research on this, but my guess is that it's used for personalisation and social (sharing) stuff rather than the place on the page. If it has any influence at all, perhaps only if many people vote up or something like that.

Member Avatar for pritaeas

That was my guess too. Am hoping someone can shed some light on this with actual numbers.

Member Avatar for twiss

If they would truly want input from the users on what links should be higher, they would add a -1 link too (right?) but I'm interested in investigation on this too.

Member Avatar for amrithaa2011

hi,

How can we convert twitter for business social network...???

Member Avatar for SEOnlace

Maybe it´s a little bit early to analyze the effects of +1 button in Google ...

I´m not sure if the effects could result to be positive or negative. But it will be interesting to see, if SERPs will turn out to be more personalized than before ...

does anybody already have any experience to share about the effects of BING collaboration for search results with facebook?

http://searchengineland.com/bing-ups-ante-in-social-search-re-ranking-serps-with-likes-77269

Member Avatar for pritaeas

does anybody already have any experience to share about the effects of BING collaboration for search results with facebook?

Please make this a new thread, as it has nothing to do with this one.

Member Avatar for SEOnlace

Please make this a new thread, as it has nothing to do with this one.

OK,
no problem

Member Avatar for JasonBrown

Hi,

This feature is related to socializing your website. I don't think it has anything to do with ranking, the main focus is to bring traffic to website.

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Edited by JasonBrown because: wrong url
Member Avatar for pritaeas

Agreed, but getting traffic to your website could mean an increase in your rank. So indirectly it could affect it.

Member Avatar for Dani

We're using it, but mostly because I'm afraid that if we don't we'll get left behind, as from what I understand Google will start including it as a factor in search ranking.

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