Less than 2 months after the Google +1 feature made its first appearance in the US search results, Google has released +1 buttons that can be placed directly on web pages. Using a small snippet of code, the button can be placed on a web page in a similar fashion to the Tweet and Facebook Like buttons.

The idea behind adding the +1 feature to the Google search results is to make each person’s results more personalised and also more social, promoting sites in their results that they and they contacts have liked with the +1 button.

With the new +1 button directly on sites this idea continues, with people being able to +1 individual pages and pieces of content on a site, as well as the actual site itself within the Google search results. But will people use it?

Competition with Facebook and Twitter
When it comes to the Google search engine, the +1 button can completely dominate as neither Facebook nor Twitter can add their buttons to the search results, and therefore the only option to like or promote a site will be through +1. However, when it comes to actual web pages, the Google +1 button may struggle to compete with the Facebook Like and Tweet buttons.

The idea behind the Facebook and Twitter buttons is to allow users to share the piece of content amongst their friends, through their own personal profiles. So, for example, the web browser sees a great blog post about a new Google feature, Tweets it, which puts a link to the post into their Twitter stream, and then the users followers can go straight to the recommended piece of content.

It is the same concept with the Facebook Like button but with +1 the idea seems to fall away slightly. Yes if you hit the +1 button people within your Google address book will be able to see it but you are not really promoting it on a profile or sharing it in an open format.

Sharing Content or Promoting the Site?
With +1 you are essentially saying you approve of the site and are promoting it in your personal search results, whereas with Tweet and Like you are sharing it. +1 then doesn’t seem to really fall in line with the Twitter and Facebook buttons and so may receive less attention because of this.

In fact, it is only early days, but if you look at sites that have already integrated this new +1 button, alongside Tweet and Like, you can see that it is not generating nearly as many clicks.

Of course as people become more aware of +1 and it becomes common on sites it will be used more, but will people develop a greater affinity to +1 than Facebook and Twitter? Google are dominant in practically every area of online but, for now at least, they are 3rd place in the rankings for social.

At the end of last week Google announced that it would be rolling out the new +1 feature on the UK search engine, in an attempt to make search results more personalised and more importantly more social.

The new feature will add a +1 button to the side of natural and paid search results, which will work similarly to the Facebook Like button. As Google put it, you can “Click +1 to publicly give something your stamp of approval. Your +1’s can help friends, contacts, and others on the web find the best stuff when they search.”

So by giving something a +1 you will be promoting it and affecting its position in not only your own personal rankings but in those of your close connections and search as a whole. There is the potential then, for this to have a big impact for SEO and natural rankings.

The impact on SEO
This new +1 feature definitely plays into what appears to be a new social heavy strategy by Google, with Tweets and Facebook likes appearing to have a greater and greater impact on indexation of pages and site rankings.

This new feature also seems to continue the approach of the new Panda update that removed a lot of mass, ‘farmer’ content from Google and the new Blocked feature that allows users to block, what they consider to be, rubbish low value domains from their search results ( a kind of -1).

All in all then this could really change the nature of how websites optimise for Google, with a heavier shift towards social. What’s more, if, as many suspect, Google do purchase Twitter in the coming weeks, then, given the data they will have at their finger tips, a shift to social does make sense.

Problems with +1
However, although +1 does have the potential to make Google much more personalised and social, it is still likely to face one or two teething problems.

For example, if your search results are based on your Tweets, Facebook Likes and +1, what about the people not on these social networks? They exist too! Is it reasonable to base these people’s searches on user behaviour in a sector they take no part in and have no interest in?

Another point is that although this sounds like a great idea, it may just not ever happen. Currently there is no +1 button that people can add to their sites (like the Tweet and Like buttons) which means you have to +1 it in the search results.

Now, if you haven’t been on the site before you won’t know if you want to +1 it. So, this means going onto the site, deciding you like it and then bouncing back off it to +1 it. For some reason, I can’t imagine people taking the time or changing their search behaviour to do this.

If Google +1 works and takes off it could create the biggest social network we have ever seen, trumping both Twitter and Facebook, and completely revolutionise search results.

However, it may well be that we are not yet at the peak of social and that people, on mass, won’t really adapt their search behaviour towards the +1 for a few years.

Since the dawn of Google one of the main aims has been to make search results more personalised and relevant to the individual user. Over the years Google have tried to achieve this aim with additions such as Stars in Search results, Search Wiki and of course the addition of location settings and Google Places.

However, even with all these additions, Google is still trying to make search results more personalised and so this week has introduced a new blocking feature on Google.com which will allow individual users to block whole domains from their search results.

Basically the new process will work like this; when you search for something, i.e. “how to fix a TV”, your usual search results will come up and there will be nothing different about the results. However, if you click on a site and then go straight back to your search results (because the site wasn’t what you were after) you will then see an option to block the website from your search results, located next to the “Cached” button.

So say there is a particular How To or Content site you always see in your results but don’t like, you will be able to block the domain and stop any of their pages from ever appearing in any of your search results.

This new option is linked to Google Accounts and so to keep the block permanent you will need to do it whilst logged in. And don’t worry if you change your mind later there will be an option to undo all of your blocks.

Ramifications for SEO

On the service this is simply a new tool to make search more personalised for individual users and in that sense has very little impact for SEO. However, although they are not doing so yet, Google have mentioned the possibility of using this new feature as a signal in ranking, stating that “we’ll look at the data and see whether it would be useful as we continue to evaluate and improve our search results in the future”.

In a very simple sense, the way this would work is, the more times a site has been blocked the more damaging to its rankings. So if a sites blocked by 100,000 people it will likely move lower than a similar site blocked by just 100 people.

If this idea were to be used as a new ranking criteria in Google there could be huge ramifications for SEO. With the addition of a block button, businesses could target rivals with negative SEO, setting up hundreds of fake Google accounts through Mechanical Turk and blocking a competitor site over and over.

So how can Google prevent this negative SEO? Well if they were to use this as criteria for rankings they would surely have to use just a select group of user’s activity to determine rankings. Basically, they would have to just look at users who have been around for a long time, have a well built up profile and are blocking domains very selectively.

Is this likely to affect rankings?

In theory this sounds like a great new way for Google to evaluate rankings, but with the huge possibility for negative SEO and the labour in finding a very select group of users doing it properly, it seems unlikely that it will come into practice anytime soon as the logistics are just too large.

However, although we may not see this impacting SEO anytime soon, the new blocking option is another step towards the ultimate personalised results that Google so desire! The new feature has gone live on Google.com this week and will be making its way to Google.co.uk very soon, so look out for it and start thinking of some sites you are sick of seeing in your results.

Since the introduction of Google places, localised searches are becoming a topic of popular discussion within SEO; this is a new way to be found on Google. The online map directory has very quickly become a sort of yellow pages’ competition; search engines are already three times as popular! This has opened a new frontier for local businesses to market themselves. Despite this, it appears Google places is often overlooked by both businesses and SEOs.

Google places has many attractive features that can be optimised to meet your requirements, and improve your online presence. You will need to optimise your listings and make them a part of your SEO campaign for more effective results.

Attractive and beneficial key features

1. Google places is now incorporated in the main search engine this shows the importance Google will continue to place on local searches. We’ve noticed some searches now have as many ‘places’ results as regular organic results, Making this an ideal way to promote online presence, particularly for small to medium sized businesses.
2. Claiming your business is the first step. Using city and business keywords within the page title and listing is great for optimisation, resulting in a positive page rank. Your business may already rank so claiming it will only strengthen your positions especially after optimisation. This can really help close out your competitors as well as improve your overall clickthrough share.
3. Google places also comes with a range of tools to help market your business better. Tags are yellow markers that allow you to promote individual aspects of your business, for example, special offers.

The image shows how Google places appears after you have entered a search query.

Mobile phone web users, when downloading Google maps app, searching for any place of interest will automatically bring up local results. This is something I personally rely on especially when visiting a new area in the city. With so many benefits and key features it is hard to believe you have anything lose!

2010 seemed like one the busiest years in search that I can remember. I say seemed , mainly,  because it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, there was a fair deal of activity from both engines last year – it’s just that I don’t think much of it had anywhere near the impact so many people thought it would.
I’m talking, of course, of things like Google Instant and Instant Preview . These were pretty significant changes as far as user experience goes, and received a huge amount of attention from both the SEO community and (especially in the former case) even the mainstream media. They were the kind of changes that would make my mum say “Ooh, Google’s changed”.

The impacts of the many interface changes in 2010 changes in 2010 were all very modest though, as far as SEO goes (not even the eventual rollout of the infrastructure related ‘caffiene’ update made a huge impact). What is easy to miss is how little these changes affect consumer behaviour – people still use a search engine to find websites and click on one of the top ones, just as they did a year ago. The only difference then, is that new distractions exist – given many distractions (think vertical search) already existed; the impact on traditional search has proved to absolutely minimal. There were some bigger changes to SEO – the heavy places integration in q4 of last year is bound to have a huge impact, but only if you’re competing for ‘local’ type searches.

Despite the hype, the caffiene update didn't provide a rush of traffic for many SEO's

Nevertheless, when these changes happened, they all provoked huge debate ranging from the usual “SEO is dead”, to predictions of more specific impacts on things like click through rates. The blogs were busy, Twitter was trending, and there were doubtlessly thousands of emails received by clients and managers about how these changes would fundamentally change search and how a new strategy was needed ASAP. And yet, if we’re honest, we’re probably entering 2011 largely unchanged.

But rather like the boy who cried wolf, I do think there could be more changes in 2011, from Google in particular. Google could have a huge impact and has the potential to catch many off guard, as we remember all the changes which didn’t change much in 2010. With Google’s algorithm still being hugely dependent on links, despite viable alternative now existing and being used in a limited capacity , Google have the potential to make a change to what really matter to marketers and (particularly) SEO’s – the way websites are ranked.

If any of the below occur to a moderate degree, 2011 would create the biggest challenge to SEO’s in many years:

• Tweets/Likes used heavily in to determine popularity (as opposed to , as I suspect currently , regency)
• User behaviour, such as bounces, folded into main algorithm
• A change to the ‘reasonable surfer’ model to how links are weighted
• A complete , or near complete disregard for Anchor text in the same way as happened with meta tags
• Prevention of duplicate “mill” content from being indexed and passing page rank

For what it’s worth, I’m expecting a least a couple of these things to happen. If they do, it’ll be the year that SEO really does change.