Google +1 Button Overview

In March 2011, Google announced their most recent foray into the social networking arena titled the Google +1 button.  Google has consistently struggled in their pursuit of adding a viable social component to their strong search offering, with such missteps as Orkut, Google Wave and Google Buzz.  Last September, Google began discussing incorporating a social component across all of its products. That strategy is beginning to unfold with innovations such as the recent creation of Google HotPot for socially-biased reviews of local businesses, the incorporation of more social signals into search result pages, and finally the addition of the Google +1 button to compete directly with Facebook’s “Like” button.

How it works

+1 is essentially Google’s version of the Facebook “Like” button, with the end goal of allowing Google users to publicly vote for or “like” content on the web.  In order to utilize the +1 feature, users must first have or create a Google Profile. After logging into a Google Profile, the +1 button will appear in both Google properties (search results, AdWords ads, etc) as well as impending third party on-site functionality similar to Facebook’s “Like” button.

When a user +1’s something, the +1 button will turn blue and the +1 will be added to the +1 tab of their Google Profile as well as recommending the +1’d links to the user’s contact list from Gmail, Google Talk, Google Contacts, and any people being followed on Google Reader and Google Buzz. +1 is currently undergoing a limited release in the U.S. and should become more prevalent in the coming months as advertisers realize the benefits of additional traffic driven by the +1 votes of users social connections. +1 currently works on all browsers that support Google Profiles.

Key Implications

• Currently, to +1 search results and see personalized +1 results from their social network users must be logged in to their Google Profiles. Those who aren’t logged in or lack Profiles will only see aggregated +1 results, which have much less of an impact on search results. Therefore the +1 button will be most impactful to Google users with large contact lists.
• As of right now, the +1 button does not impact how Google determines the relevancy of its paid search ads.  In the future, this data may be utilized to determine the most relevant paid ads and organic listings to serve in personal search results. However, this is yet to be determined as wide-scale user adoption is in question.
• In time, organic and paid search +1 data could become another metric in determining relevancy and user engagement. This could be a huge advantage in making further optimizations to both SEO and SEM campaigns with the end goal of producing more engaging content that appeals to the majority of users.
• Mobile pages also have the ability to be +1’d, which would be a quick way for mobile users to issue a vote of confidence to a local business or location.
• Ultimately, +1 data can be used to make more informed decisions about the most optimal paid search landing pages. Google has indicated that a common +1 infrastructure will be used for both paid and organic search listings, meaning that an organic page that has a high +1 count will carry over that added relevance to paid search ads that utilize that organic page as a landing page. In general, a more cohesive paid and organic strategy should be applied to the +1 button.

Conclusions

Rather than positioning the +1 button as a competitor to Facebook, Google is attempting to leverage social signals to deliver more relevant search results and a better experience for its users. It can be interpreted as a direct response to the Bing and Facebook partnership that began in late 2010 that incorporated Facebook “Like” data into Bing search results.

Regardless, the +1 button presents advertisers with another potential benefit to engaging users with meaningful and interesting content. There is virtually no risk to advertisers incorporating +1 functionality into their sites and there is the possibility that this could become a significant ranking factor in the near future, which is now dependent on the scale of user adoption.

The History of the Courtship:

On Wednesday, Facebook and Microsoft announced major social context integration into Bing’s search results, showing no sign of ending their relationship at the altar.  The courtship began in 2006 when Microsoft partnered with Facebook, becoming an exclusive partner of banner advertising and sponsored links on Facebook.com.  One year later, Microsoft announced an engagement, dedicating $240 million equity stake into Facebook’s financing.  By 2009, Bing was finally powering Facebook search.  It takes us to August 2010, when the two set up housekeeping: Facebook Places came to fruition featuring location-based check-in courtesy of Microsoft Maps.

They Made it Official: Bing Marries Social

A new era of social web experience and instant personalization emerged this week based on the information Facebook friends provide through the “Like” button.   In order to utilize these personalized search results, Bing will request access to your Facebook account through a pop up on the top right corner of its site.  This request will prompt five times before it’s eventually disabled, at which point users can opt in or out in their Bing preferences

Every time a friend chooses to “Like” a certain topic or object on Facebook, it will be used within future consideration of personalized and relevant Bing search results.  The way it works is that when a relevant query is run in Bing that correlates with pre-determined topics and objects, Facebook data is scraped from your account looking for matches around that search term. If a match or matches are found, they are displayed within the SERP. An example of this would be a search for “Philadelphia restaurants”, which in theory would return a social module that shows that one of your friends liked Five Guys recently. These Facebook “Like” listings will be embedded directly into search results, placed within their own module, and ranked based on relevancy.

Another social web experience Facebook announced on Wednesday is People Search.  When a full name is searched on Bing, the Facebook profiles within your network will appear at the top of Bing search results.

Integrations in the near future will feature multiple listings of “Like” links within results.  Long term integrations include the development of social search results based on the “experts” within a user’s social network.  Experts are said to be chosen based on check-ins and photo tags. In addition, the Q&A session after the announcement revealed the possibility of a future inclusion of “like” button information on all relevant search results listings, as rich snippet data.

Does this leave Google standing out in the cold?

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, stated the reasoning behind this “marriage” was that Facebook prefers to work with a “really scrappy” underdog (aka Bing), and that Bing has the power to “innovate and push new things.”  Although Google has historically accepted the integration of the social web experience (most recently Twitter), the search engine’s social integration has typically been reactive rather than proactive.  Google’s response is highly anticipated as the company has typically relied on its algorithm rather than social to remain ahead of the search game.

The Future of Instant Personalized Search:

Bing’s move to embrace instant personalized search sends a strong message on the future of search.  Companies, marketers, Google, and search experts alike should now, more than ever, recognize that search is no longer just about search results.  Facebook enables Bing to not only share resources found around the web, but also brings trusted sources directly to the searcher.  This social search marriage further pushes the thought that connections, not websites will have the biggest influence over decision making in the future.  The partnership also stresses the importance of creating social platforms in order to promote trusted connections with customers.  Bing’s marriage to social reinforces the idea that people of the future will begin to rely heavily on making decisions based on the trust of friends and family.

Nothing in search is certain…

1.   greg giraldo – The death of this successful stand up and host of Last Comic Standing surprised many

2.   rick sanchez – When you’re a host on CNN, you probably shouldn’t go around calling your peers ‘racist’

3.   tony curtis – Another Hollywood great was lost this week.  He leaves us Some Like It Hot and Jamie Lee

4.   tyler clementi – A sad case of technology used for evil

5.   ryder cup – Thank Tiger Woods for the latest internet meme

6.   eleições 2010 – The first time since 1989 that Lula has not run for President.

7.   tse – Ex-AIG exec prepares Chinese AIA for their big debut

8.   sf giants – playoffs?  PLAYOFFS?!

9.   uggs – Winter returns…so do smelly feet

10.  google street view – Those wacky Street View cars caught their least funny scene yet:  a deadly crime scene in Brazil

Today Razorfish released the sixth annual Razorfish Outlook Report.

The report drives home the fact that digital is on center stage right now. Consumers and technology are responsible for the shift  — marketers need to keep up.

Search VP Josh Palau provides the outlook for search. Explaining the concept “Search Everywhere,”  he points out that as consumers expect more and more information at their fingertips, smart marketers will make sure search is integrated into all aspects of marketing, not a standalone tactic.

We encourage you to explore the full report and check out the graphics on flickr.

Our esteemed Discipline Lead offers advice to SearchShots readers. If you’re a search marketer in need of guidance, send us an email at razorfishsearch@razorfish.com with the subject line “Prof Ranker” and he’ll get to you when he can. (Note: the Professor’s opinions are not those of Razorfish. The agency is not responsible for bad career moves or other incidents caused by our guru’s sage advice.)

Dear Professor Ranker,

I’m hoping you can help with with this age-old paid search quest: How does one achieve higher click volume, while simultaneously decreasing CPCs?

-Scaling Inefficiently in SF

Dear SISF,

Two ways: Improve your quality score, and bid competitively. Accomplish the former by:

-Prioritizing exact-match traffic (double-buy top keywords on broad and exact, bid higher on the exact version)

-Running A/B copy tests on high-volume exact-match keywords (test new concepts, not just new variables)

-Improving keyword categorization to align more keywords to copy and make it easier for the quality algorithm to predict CTR

Bidding competitively means treating the auctions like a multi-player (rather than a one-player) game. You get a lower CPC for the same position whenever the advertiser below you in the auction bids down. You get a higher position for the same CPC if the advertiser above you vacates the auction. Many many many of the people who manage search campaigns make bid decisions based entirely on their own performance. This lends an advantage to the minority who understand “performance” as a function of other bidders’ decisions. Learn their habits, change their performance and you’ll probably be able to get competitors to bid down or vacate (especially if your competitors over-rely on automated bid tools, all of which play search as a one-player game).

Behind every search advertisement is a decision-maker trying to hit a goal. Some are aggressive and take risks to occupy high positions; some are cautious and seek bargains. Some compute smart estimations of how much they need to change a bid in order to change one position at a time; others take ignorant guesses. (Automated bidders are always cautious and ignorant.)

The interesting part is learning how aggressive bidders behave when they pay more than they expected to (so jam them), and how cautious bidders behave when they get a price break (so try and walk the auction down). Foreseeing their moves is how to achieve better prices routinely.