August 31, 2011 at 22:29+1 votes may affect main search results
Google plans to increase the value of +1 votes to rank sites and fight spam. Now, if you put a “plus sign” to a specific site, it will only affect what your “friends” see on the Google+ social network. In the search results near a particular site, they will be shown an image from your profile and a note that you set +1 to this site.
But in the future, votes may well be taken into account as a universal coefficient for the main search results. They will affect the issuance not only for friends, but for all other users. If this happens, it will significantly change the search engine optimization market. Votes +1 will become a valuable commodity (now they are sold in bulk at $ 360 for 2000 pieces ).
But Google hopes it can eliminate the abuse. The ban on the use of nicknames on Google+ will also help to combat the creation of fake profiles and cheating votes.
“Google will examine the +1 button clicks as a signal that affects the ranking and inclusion of websites in search results,” a Google spokeswoman told Wired . “With +1 votes and other social ranking signals, as with any new signals, we first handle carefully and examine how they relate to search quality.”
Google search engine algorithms take into account a huge number of factors. At the moment, more than 200 signals in one way or another affect the position in the search results of each individual site. About 500 changes to the algorithm were made over the past year. Given the complexity of the system, it can be assumed that the value of +1 votes at first will not be too large.
It would seem that Google just cares about the quality of the search and is looking for ways to improve it a little. In fact this is not true. If +1 votes will influence the site’s position in the search results, this will become a powerful incentive for all sites to install +1 buttons on themselves. In turn, this will lead to an increase in the popularity of the social network Google+, the development of which Google considers one of the main priorities in the near future.
According to some experts, promoting a social network using such methods may attract the attention of the US Department of Justice, which is involved in antitrust matters. From the point of view of competitors, it looks as if Google is using its monopoly position in the search engine market in order to gain a competitive advantage for its social network by dishonest methods. This is similar to how Microsoft used the Windows operating system to promote Internet Explorer and its other products, for which it was punished by antitrust authorities of the United States and the European Union.
via Wired , Forbes (article removed from Forbes and from Google cache; copy in Blekko cache )
But in the future, votes may well be taken into account as a universal coefficient for the main search results. They will affect the issuance not only for friends, but for all other users. If this happens, it will significantly change the search engine optimization market. Votes +1 will become a valuable commodity (now they are sold in bulk at $ 360 for 2000 pieces ).
But Google hopes it can eliminate the abuse. The ban on the use of nicknames on Google+ will also help to combat the creation of fake profiles and cheating votes.
“Google will examine the +1 button clicks as a signal that affects the ranking and inclusion of websites in search results,” a Google spokeswoman told Wired . “With +1 votes and other social ranking signals, as with any new signals, we first handle carefully and examine how they relate to search quality.”
Google search engine algorithms take into account a huge number of factors. At the moment, more than 200 signals in one way or another affect the position in the search results of each individual site. About 500 changes to the algorithm were made over the past year. Given the complexity of the system, it can be assumed that the value of +1 votes at first will not be too large.
It would seem that Google just cares about the quality of the search and is looking for ways to improve it a little. In fact this is not true. If +1 votes will influence the site’s position in the search results, this will become a powerful incentive for all sites to install +1 buttons on themselves. In turn, this will lead to an increase in the popularity of the social network Google+, the development of which Google considers one of the main priorities in the near future.
According to some experts, promoting a social network using such methods may attract the attention of the US Department of Justice, which is involved in antitrust matters. From the point of view of competitors, it looks as if Google is using its monopoly position in the search engine market in order to gain a competitive advantage for its social network by dishonest methods. This is similar to how Microsoft used the Windows operating system to promote Internet Explorer and its other products, for which it was punished by antitrust authorities of the United States and the European Union.
via Wired , Forbes (article removed from Forbes and from Google cache; copy in Blekko cache )