In Social Sharing, Google +1 Surges

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:16:00 GMT

SEO Platform BrightEdge is reporting that its analysis of the Web’s 10,000 largest websites is showing a 33 percent increase in placement of the Google +1 button in the last few weeks.

While Facebook still claims a two-to-one lead in placement on these sites over other social networks, most brands are still not linking to Facebook. BrightEdge’s SocialShare Site Analysis found that 47 percent of sites are linking to the social network with Twitter seen on 42 percent of the sites measured. It is important to note that these percentages are based on the sites “linking” to Facebook and do not include actual social plugins.

When it comes to social plugins however, Facebook still leads the way with almost 20 percent of the sites including the plugin tools offered by Facebook. But Google+ is surging, achieving placement on 4.4 percent of the sites (Plugins from Twitter are displayed on just 3.4 percent of the front pages.

“Overall, this inaugural version of our SocialShare Site Analysis shows huge opportunity for brands to engage more socially,” said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. “Fewer than half the largest sites on the Web offer any kind of social link at all on their front page and these sites represent a massive slice of Internet traffic on any given day. We would expect to see a land grab effort this year as plugins vie for placement on this very valuable Web real estate.”

Google +1 for Web Publishers

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:10:00 GMT

Google formally released the +1 button today. This “social recommendation” and “annotation” feature is a new area for Google and in turn for consumers, publishers and of course advertisers (more on that later) so Website Magazine will be watching development closely in the next few week.

Google partnered with several sites including Bloomberg, The Washington Post, Reuters, Nordstrom and others (including social sharing tool AddThis) to display the +1 feature today. Google will deploy the +1 button on Google properties such as the Android Market, Blogger, Product Search and YouTube in the coming days.

Get Started with Google +1
To deploy the feature on your Web property, visit the +1 button tool on Google Webmaster Central. You will be able to configure a small snippet of JavaScript and integrate it where you want it to appear. Several button sizes and styles are available.

So what’s so important about +1? According to the official Google announcement, “By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search results and search ads could show up with +1 annotations more often, helping users see when your pages are most likely to be useful.” Google is once again playing to its strengths – webmasters (and Web professionals) – to make the +1 button a mainstay on websites that rely on both its organic and paid traffic. Whether it can compete in a landscape full with social services is something only time will tell.

Website Magazine will be covering the +1 annotation feature in greater detail in the coming days an in future issues of the print publication.

'Net Features : +1

In Social Sharing, Google +1 Surges

Google +1 for Web Publishers