Google just changed SEO for good today.

[thetime22]

They are rolling out a +1 tick box next to search results. Read more about it here. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-1-and-the-rise-of-social-seo

Nervous and excited at the same time.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Great news for those people who want to combine SEO with useful/quality content.

Bad news for the spammers. **** them - lol.

Steve

 

[DotNetWebs]

They are rolling out a +1 tick box next to search results. Read more about it here. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-1-and-the-rise-of-social-seo

Nervous and excited at the same time.

Yes I mentioned it here:

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=1584445&postcount=265

Regards

Dotty

 

[Prestige-SEO]

This is going to be another fail from google, You have to be logged into google to use this feature, do you think the average user is going to signup to google just for this?

plus its going to be abused massively, I think google should stick to there search enginge and stop trying to rule everything internet.

 

[thetime22]

Great news for those people who want to combine SEO with useful/quality content.

Bad news for the spammers. **** them - lol.

Steve

It will also rival the facebook like button. Wondering if you can get a google +1 box for the site.. not just the Google generated one that appears next to your search results. This is going to be massive.

 

[thetime22]

This is going to be another fail from google, You have to be logged into google to use this feature, do you think the average user is going to signup to google just for this?

plus its going to be abused massively, I think google should stick to there search enginge and stop trying to rule everything internet.

Yeah it's going to be open season for the SEO community. I can already see the black hatters buying matured google accounts.

 

[fisicx]

On the other hand the feature could be at 199 out of the 200+ ranking signals. As someone commented on in the SEOmoz post, the amount of effort needed to game the system may well be inversely proportional to the benefits of doing so.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

On the other hand the feature could be at 199 out of the 200+ ranking signals. As someone commented on in the SEOmoz post, the amount of effort needed to game the system may well be inversely proportional to the benefits of doing so.

£5 for 10,000 clicks from some poor Indian peasant...

 

[thetime22]

£5 for 10,000 clicks from some poor Indian peasant...

For sure the accounts wouldn't be matured.. and google would cotton onto the fact that the same 200 accounts keep +1'ing the same sites.. and they are all from the same IP address... It's going to be hard to game.. the only way to do it would be to setup a ring...

 

[thetime22]

On the other hand the feature could be at 199 out of the 200+ ranking signals. As someone commented on in the SEOmoz post, the amount of effort needed to game the system may well be inversely proportional to the benefits of doing so.

Exactly, we will only know once it's rolled out.

 

[unet]

its all good news - make my life easier now

 

[Annoying Donkey]

For sure the accounts wouldn't be matured.. and google would cotton onto the fact that the same 200 accounts keep +1'ing the same sites.. and they are all from the same IP address... It's going to be hard to game.. the only way to do it would be to setup a ring...

Haven't you heard of proxies or Mechanical Turk

 

[thetime22]

Haven't you heard of proxies or Mechanical Turk

Bingo! But is Google smart enough to think "hmmm why is this person logging in from India, when 5 mins ago they were in London", again we don't really know how sophisticated Google are.

 

[keyideas]

+1 will really help spammer and will be beneficial for website owner and SEO person

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I blogged about this earlier, and my thoughtsa re that it can be a great system.

Use myself as an example. I have a google Gmail account. I got this account when they were only available on test from google via invitation. I joined Orkut (the original Google social network) when again it was invite only from Google. My friends on Orkut are big hitters with regard Google, I have used Gmail for years, Google have my bank details and have paid me money each month since the dawn of Adsense. They have my WMT data, my Analytics data. They know my Twitter details, and can see who is following me.

I see this as a step of taking their original citation algorithm applying it to the social web, and then transferring that authority to the Serp +1 button.

In Short, not all +1's will be equal.

 

[DotNetWebs]

...In Short, not all +1's will be equal.

I agree.

This is the same principle I suggested last year that Facebook could apply to the 'Like' system only to get shot down in flames

Regards

Dotty

 

[terryuk]

For sure the accounts wouldn't be matured.. and google would cotton onto the fact that the same 200 accounts keep +1'ing the same sites.. and they are all from the same IP address... It's going to be hard to game.. the only way to do it would be to setup a ring...

I think it'd be much easier than that unfortunately and without a trace.

I can't see it playing a big part in the algo

We will soon see +1 likes for sale

 

[Annoying Donkey]

We will soon see +1 likes for sale

Already happening...

 

[terryuk]

Already happening...

Lol yeah. These people are quick.....

 

[omnivore]

I blogged about this earlier, and my thoughtsa re that it can be a great system.

Use myself as an example. I have a google Gmail account. I got this account when they were only available on test from google via invitation. I joined Orkut (the original Google social network) when again it was invite only from Google. My friends on Orkut are big hitters with regard Google, I have used Gmail for years, Google have my bank details and have paid me money each month since the dawn of Adsense. They have my WMT data, my Analytics data. They know my Twitter details, and can see who is following me.

I see this as a step of taking their original citation algorithm applying it to the social web, and then transferring that authority to the Serp +1 button.

In Short, not all +1's will be equal.

and presumably each gmail account can only like/+1 a thing once and an account with low activity or supicious activity can have a heavily discounted value so it should be relatively easy to make it unworthwhile spamwise in seo terms.

the main value will be to seo suppliers who can convince the inexperienced website owner that it is worth them buying 5,000 +1's for £50. it won't do anything for their seo but it will be an easy £50 for the dodgy seo's

 

[fisicx]

the main value will be to seo suppliers who can convince the inexperienced website owner that it is worth them buying 5,000 +1's for £50. it won't do anything for their seo but it will be an easy £50 for the dodgy seo's

I can see the adverts now:

1000 forum signatures
1000 blog comments
1000 directory submissions
1000 google likes
All for $99.99

Won't do a think for your ranking but is an easy way to waste your money.

 

[awebapart.com]

For sure the accounts wouldn't be matured.. and google would cotton onto the fact that the same 200 accounts keep +1'ing the same sites.. and they are all from the same IP address... It's going to be hard to game.. the only way to do it would be to setup a ring...

A ring, or a malware botnet of hundreds of thousands of zombified PCs, automatically using real people's PCs, and real people's accounts, without them knowing about it.

Like any user action having a ranking factor, user actions can be faked just as much as "honest looking" linkbuilding has been faked in the past too. So if Google are sensible, they wont be assiging too much weight to it. If anything it is Google putting more of their eggs in different baskets, spreading the risk, knowing all too well that anything they do can be gamed.

 

[I, Brian]

Just a weak attempt to "challenge" Facebook, really.

Sad, to be honest, that Google has sought so long to innovate in search, but for the past year especially they have been trying to copy.

For sure the accounts wouldn't be matured.. and google would cotton onto the fact that the same 200 accounts keep +1'ing the same sites.. and they are all from the same IP address... It's going to be hard to game.. the only way to do it would be to setup a ring...

For "Blackhatters", automating email registrations on any website through large IP lists is bread and butter. Don't expect them to be too challenged. And that's before we consider cheap manual labour to append it.

We've seen all this with forum spam. Don't think for a moment Google will be immune. Heck, many forum spammers automate the creation of gmail accounts as standard!

 

[An Oasis]

I can't help wondering how much impact SM is having on the search industry. We were seeing a downward trend via GA on a number of sites but most of the more established sites were seeing upwards trends in terms of user visits. Which led me to wondering why they removed the Benchmarking aspect of GA. Cynical on my part but the trends were damning on sites that get a reasonable level of hits PCM.

 

[MASSEY]

Great news for those people who want to combine SEO with useful/quality content.

Bad news for the spammers. **** them - lol.

Steve

I would put money on spamming the +1 being even easier to game than spamming links.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I would put money on spamming the +1 being even easier to game than spamming links.

I wouldn't.

Google are well aware people are trying to game the SEO algo. I'd suggest that means they've concluded this will make it harder to game the rankings, rather than easier.

Based on something I heard recently about their ability to spot dodgy linking, I suspect it will be easy for them to see dodgy +1s and that'll allow them to bring down a lot of sites.

Steve

 

[Alby10]

As with most things, unscrupulous people will try to find a way of taking advantage of the change by various means. However, Google will already know that some will try to abuse the system, and put in relevant measures to ensure it doesn't happen or does not provide them with any benefit.

 

[thetime22]

Scenario 1.

You do a google search, you click a result, you browse the website, because it was so great you click the back button to return to the search results page and click the +1... you just had a bounced visitor!! we all know Bounces affect rankings.. what to make of it all.

 

[Prestige-SEO]

I wouldn't.

Google are well aware people are trying to game the SEO algo. I'd suggest that means they've concluded this will make it harder to game the rankings, rather than easier.

Based on something I heard recently about their ability to spot dodgy linking, I suspect it will be easy for them to see dodgy +1s and that'll allow them to bring down a lot of sites.

Steve

You think Google are going to manually check them all?

Nope, so what are they going to do.. come up with more restrictions, as long as theres a way to manually create accounts the blackhatters will figure something out.

 

[mountrecruitment]

Wondering if you can get a google +1 box for the site.. not just the Google generated one that appears next to your search results. This is going to be massive.

I read somewhere that this was the case....believe it was mashable but i may be wrong

 

[fisicx]

You think Google are going to manually check them all?

No, they are going to give it so little importance that ranking is not affected.

 

[Esk247]

No, they are going to give it so little importance that ranking is not affected.

ranking probably won't be affected by the +1 system but as a voting measure will it cause a problem? especially for new websites.

 

[Webserve Development]

Google had to do something to emulate the Facebook like button as its a very powerful tool.

 

[Phillip SEO]

I welcome the change. Links jsut aren't natural or as plentiful as they were 2 years ago. Social Media metrics are far more trusting.

I'm just keen to learn how they will deal with +1 spam. People WILL get paid to +1 links.

 

[Phillip SEO]

I blogged about this earlier, and my thoughtsa re that it can be a great system.

Use myself as an example. I have a google Gmail account. I got this account when they were only available on test from google via invitation. I joined Orkut (the original Google social network) when again it was invite only from Google. My friends on Orkut are big hitters with regard Google, I have used Gmail for years, Google have my bank details and have paid me money each month since the dawn of Adsense. They have my WMT data, my Analytics data. They know my Twitter details, and can see who is following me.

I see this as a step of taking their original citation algorithm applying it to the social web, and then transferring that authority to the Serp +1 button.

In Short, not all +1's will be equal.

I haven't been on UKBF for ages (moved to Sydney), but glad to see your still here.

I couldn't agree more it is a complete overhaul of the citation algo. I too had a Gmail account from beta - Google knows everything about me & I honestly think there are some SEO benefits that come with it.

Trouble is though, when Facebook launched their Social Graph, they were able to leverage people friendships to promote it's use - Google don't have that. Does this hinder it's success?

 

[unet]

It will not affect anything - Google changes and everyone else figures out how to get round ranking issues. The voting etc will not affect rankings for ages.

 

[MarcusMiller]

Based on the information we have so far, it seems easy to criticise and possibly open to abuse from networks of people banding together to +1 each other which is no different to guest posting by chums on each others blogs.

I don't like the branding either, I mean, +1, what the fluck does that mean? It's easy to understand 'Like' - my mom would get that but +1?

I use tons of google services as well, tons, but I don't use gmail, chat, wave or anything remotely social from google. I have not connected my google account with twitter and the email address I do use is not public on the forums I frequent so how are they going to 'connect me' with other people.

Maybe this is a small part of something else to come but at the moment, without an existing social platform behind it, I am not sure if this will be any more than a buzz in the seo community, that gets a few sidewiki mentions and we all wave goodbye!

SEOMoz have published some interesting experiments showing how twitter can impact search positioning and some further correlation data but to some extent the correlation stuff needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. If something gets a lot of tweets it is likely good and comes from a trusted source, it also gets tons of exposure, links from forums, other blog posts etc on the back of that exposure so....

Still, they seem to be interested in social in a big way to help overcome the weakness in the current model so one things for sure, it's going to be an interesting 12 months to be in Internet Marketing.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

You think Google are going to manually check them all?

Do you think Google's only way of evaluating anything is by doing it manually?

Steve

 

[logicfusion]

To me personally, its obvious there are several sphincter muscles twitching in the Google camp with regards to the massive popularity of social networking. I only need to look at the wife and her friends. The majority of them only ever use Facebook for their online activities.

It remains to be seen exactly how Google are going to implement the +1 feature. However, Google are not stupid and they are certainly not short on money. I'm certain there are going to be some major changes with regards to Google getting more involved in social networking in the future. +1 is only just the beginning...

With regards to the gaming of systems, there are always going to be groups of individuals that perform grossly unethical techniques to gain a competitive advantage.

Google hasn't managed to stop this entirely up to now - what makes people think they will able be able to in the future?

Indeed, Google are not 'whiter than white' with some of their policies in my personal opinion (as certain irritating so called white hat preachers would have you believe).

I wouldn't be surprised to see legislation at statute relating to online monopolies in the future.