In response to the Facebook Like button, Facebook sharing data with Bing to incorporate Likes into Bing search results (and one could speculate, to the ongoing Google/Facebook feud), Google recently introduced the +1 site recommendation service to their search results and advertisements. If you have a Google Profile and are logged into your Google Account, you may start seeing +1s in your Google search results.
In addition, Google plans to add a +1 button for website owners to add to their pages. The plan is to display +1s from your network of friends in your Google Profile and connections on other social networking sites, with the intention to more prominently display the search results recommended by you and your connections.
So far this sounds like a useful, forward-thinking addition to Personalized Search, but there is more. Since Google plans to use signals from +1s along with other social signals to adjust site rankings in their overall site search, this would immediately seem like an obvious target for unscrupulous marketers to attempt gaming.
Techniques are already in place to click on advertisements (click fraud), which could simply be modified to “+1? certain sites. For example, an organization could set up a paid network of people who search for specified keywords and click target sites. Or a botnet controller could cause hijacked web browsers to make phantom clicks on target sites when a certain phrase is entered. Perhaps website owners would offer a discount if the visitor “+1s” their site. Or a network of friends could agree to “+1? each others’ sites. It isn’t difficult to imagine +1 trading schemes springing up alongside of link trading.
We would love to learn more about how much Google plans to integrate social search signals into the main search results, how much they will affect site owners, and how Google intends to combat fraud. Please comment below to tell us what you think!
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