Google's +1 Button takes on Facebook's Like Google's +1 Button takes on Facebook's Like

With everything on the Internet going social, Google has given a social spin to its search engine as well. Google has announced the +1 button, which is much similar to Facebook's Like button. Just like its Facebook counterpart, the +1 button lets you recommend search results to your contacts across Google's own network, and also receive recommendations from the same. But unlike Facebook's Like button, the recommendations will be served to the user in a more elegant and relevant fashion.

The +1 button is placed on the right side of a search result link and right next to the magnifying glass icon of the Google's Instant Previews feature. If you think the website you've visited is worthy of being shared, you may use the +1 Button to share it with your Google contacts. The recommended website will then show up in your friends' Google search results when they search for something relevant to it. Your Google contacts will be able to see that you have recommended that particular website for them and vice-versa.  Google says that the +1 button can be easily added to websites, so you can expect it to be commonplace on the Internet, enabling you to share them with your friends; pretty much like you use the Like button.

 

For example, if your friend recommends a particular website, about say a certain mobile phone, by clicking on the +1 button, you will find the same website recommended by your friend in your search results, the next time you hunt for a mobile phone upgrade in Google search. In a world where web search results are rife with SEO optimised pages of little relevance, it's good to have websites recommended by someone you know and trust, and not just a by product clever optimisations designed to fool the Google algorithm.

Google product manager Rob Spiro sums that up in his blog post that explains, "Our goal at Google is to get you the most relevant results as quickly as possible. But relevance is about relationships as well as words on webpages. That's why we recently started to include more information from people you know -- stuff they've shared on Twitter, Flickr and other sites -- in Google search results. Today we're taking that a step further, enabling you to share recommendations with the world right in Google's search results."

 The +1 button hasn't been released to the public yet, but Google claims that it is been being beta tested on a controlled number of test audience. Soon enough, users will be able to sample this feature by opting in for it through Google's experimental search site. It seems like Google is just about to break Facebook's monopoly on recommendations, but is Google's own social network comprising of Google contacts large enough to have any relevance over Facebook's massive network, which makes incorporating the Like button attractive for websites? Even then, the relevance of the implementation of the +1 button into Google searches may make it more successful.