Google Launches +1 Recommendations Today (Update)

We’ve reported not too long ago on the fact that Google was testing out a new feature in a special Google+ Group. Today Google is rolling out this feature to everyone. This feature changes the +1 button to become a recommendation button.

Until now the button was mainly used for acknowledging a page is to your liking and you could share through it as well. Now Google is adding recommendations.

The recommendations will be from the site you are visiting and will mean another boost for the usage of the +1 button without a doubt, because it suddenly became interesting for website owners to persuade you to click the +1 button, because it will show you more from that specific site.

The feature will show other pages on the site or domain which might be of interest of you based on the behavior of your friends. So if some of your friends have liked another page on that site, that will show up. It would look something like this:

This off course will be a big boost to both the +1s as well as Google’s efforts to get the Social Graph working for the user (more types of content to be shown), for Google itself (getting more information on the user and thus building their Social Graph out even further) and in this case also for website owners who might see more movement on their site and more people clicking around.

It does however look as if the functionality which lets you share more easily on Google+ with that has disappeared, which will not improve the interaction there.

If you’ve already have the +1 button running your site within the next few weeks things will change automatically. Recommendations will work across all +1 buttons for all users, whether or not they’re signed into Google+. If you want to see recommendations today, you need to sign up for the developer preview group.

Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld is a speaker, trainer and online marketing strategist. Bas is the owner of Stateofsearch.com. -- You can hire Bas to speak, train or consult. -- More articles and bio from Bas van den Beld