Yesterday Google announced the experimental rollout of its +1 search social recommendation feature. (See Google +1 Is Google’s Like Button for details.) For the present, you can only use this feature on Google’s search results page, to “plus” individual search results and/or ads.
It is likely that Google +1 will not really take off until Google makes available a button that webmasters can place on their sites. As many pointed out yesterday, it is not likely that a great number of users will bother to revisit the Google search page to plus a site’s organic listing or ad after they have visited the site and had a chance to evaluate its helpfulness. But if the Google +1 button is right there on the site, it will certainly be more enticing. As evidenced by the success and ubiquity of the Facebook Like button, people like to recommend and commend sites and pages to their social circles. The opportunity to do it in conjunction with the most widely-used search engine should be attractive.
While you can’t yet get a Google +1 button for your site, Google has started an email list to send out notifications when the button code becomes available. You have to provide an email address, and can optionally include your website’s URL (although why you would do this is not clear–perhaps Google will auto-send you code specific to your site when the buttons roll out?). Go here to sign up for notification of the Google +1 website button.
