Facebook’s Like button promotes online interaction and sharing among a user’s group of “friends.” The Like button is very powerful because people are more likely to act upon recommendations from friends vs. strangers. Like has also become popular as an intuitive public rating system for all web content including videos, blogs and websites. The more likes and tweets your page has, the greater chance you have of going viral. Everyone loves their piece to go viral, but these spurts of fame have a tendency to burn out and die quickly. The weakness of the Like button is that Like offers only small window of visibility, either on a viewer’s news feeds or on their wall. The valuable personalized Likes are quickly buried and whatever positives the Likes once had- disappears. From Facebook’s perspective this is good because it encourages the user to keep posting to get the positive feedback. From the user’s perspective the constant quest for thumbs up can be exhausting.

Facebook’s little thumb needs to pay attention to two positive advantages Google’s +1 has that could potentially leave this hitchhiker in the dust. These are Google’s massive market penetration and the duration of +1’s influence.

The size and diversity of Google’s businesses alone makes Google’s +1 a little darling and a threat to the Like button. Google controls most of the advertising dollars on the Internet through search and they own high traffic sites like Youtube, Blogspot and Google Maps. In addition, they are determined to remain a player in the mobile device market, have recently developed their own browser and new apps are appearing daily. The +1 button will work seamlessly across all things Google and this enhances its value for advertisers, users and businesses.

You can also count on Google incorporating +1 into their Social Media algorithm in addition to Facebook and Twitter. Google is likely to disproportionately weight the +1 and this fact alone will increase +1’s market penetration.

Market duration relies and feeds off of Google’s market penetration. Google’s +1 doesn’t rely on a platform like Facebook to be useful and relevant to a user. Rather, +1s are displayed to a user anytime they use Google search. When a Google user is logged into Google they will be able to see the +1s from their friends along with their search results. Furthermore, this feature cleverly extends to paying Google Adword customers. The contextual placement of +1 is potentially very powerful. For example, let’s say a friend of yours is a horticulturist and he has +1ed public gardens all over the world. The next time you are in St. Louis and want something to do, your “public garden” search will include your friend’s +1 recommendation for Busch Gardens at the top of your search and you are likely to take his recommendation. Some reviewers have seen the “logged into Google requirement” as a limitation of the +1 rating system but this is irrelevant on smart phones and other mobile platforms. Moreover, +1s will potentially increase click through rates. People generally want whatever they think other people want. Google’s inclusion of +1s in Adwords should increase click though rates and dramatically impact Adword real estate.

It’s almost impossible for any webmasters and marketers to keep on top of all the new Internet developments, and it’s tempting to wait until +1 is established before jumping in with both feet. However, we think this is a fantastic idea and are taking the chance that it has legs. Source ranking is something search has never managed effectively and Google’s development of social layers and +1 has the potential to dramatically improve Goggle Search. +1 at the moment is source agnostic but the entire reason social media tags work comes back to the fact that a user will place a higher valuation on information based upon his/her perception of the source’s legitimacy, expertise and knowledge. Some recommendations are just more valuable than others and these are subjective judgments.

Furthermore, the +1 lends itself to the future introduction of a 100-point rating scale and this would finally create a useful Internet rating system. The American Robert Parker made his name and radically changed the world’s wine industry with his introduction of a 100-point scale. Google could easily do the same in the future with the +1.

This was just launched Tuesday, so we hope what we are seeing is phase one. As of today, Google AU is only showing the products if the user clicks on Shopping on the left nav menu. This extra click will not product much traffic, especially this early. On Google US, five shopping results are displayed as part of Universal Search, directly on page one. They have enticing pictures, pricing, reviews stars, and store names. As a preview of the prominent attention we can expect in AU once they put the results mixed in with natural results, I googled ‘vacuum cleaner’ on Google US:

Currently many of the items displayed in Shopping AU are Ebay listings, but we expect that to become more robust as businesses learn how to push the data to Google. We have been assisting our clients with this in anticipation of this day. Google gives priority to the age of the product feed, so the sooner you are participating, the better.   Visit the Google Merchant Center to get instructions on submitting your data.

Only products fed to Google will show up here, so we recommend two immediate actions: get your data feed to google, and set up your product reviews using the hreview microformat John wrote about last week.

It helps us find local destinations, like businesses and restaurants.

As we travel through a new type of landscape we are guided by signs, as always. But the source of the signs and information is much different now. Travelers are creating the guidelines and providing directions for the inquiring traveler. This is what happens with Google Profile. Users rate/review businesses, restaurants and service providers based on their experience.

This creates a large database of information in Places, of course. But it also helps the Internet behemoth with another task – making suggestions to users in the future. Add the “friend” touch and you have a referral and suggested destination business model called Hotpot that guides you to physical locations in your area.

If you are in a neighborhood that is popular with you and your circle of friends you can use Hotpot to find restaurants, bookstores, business offices etc. that will include the locations popular with your friends.

The key is using filters that drive down to best performance practices on the pages. The module includes filters to optimize JavaScript, HTML and CSS style sheets, along with filters to optimize JPEG images and PNG images.

When word first came out about mod-pagespeed there was a tendency to panic. Developers and Webmasters found that in addition to the dozens of factors affecting search-engine rankings Google was going to start using speed as a primary factor. The questions were:

• Would this have a serious negative effect on the “little guys” who couldn’t afford to fully optimize their self-designed pages?
• How would complex but attractive pages be affected?

Using page speed as a primary factor in the search-engine process will only affect a tiny percentage of sites, according to information from Google. The company provides a number of ways to speed up sites. Webmasters should probably take look at these. code.google.com

Using mod_pagespeed in combination with the correct compression and caching steps should result in significant improvement in loading time.

According to most encyclopedia definitions, organic searches are natural listings/results from a search-engine spider crawling a Web site. The process begins when a keyword is used in a search engine. There is no monetization (pay for these listings. It’s simply the most accurate results according to the work of the search engine. The key word here is “relevant.”

The Opposite

Processes such as pay-per-click advertising would qualify as non-organic in this discussion. Major search engines such as Google and Yahoo, for example, use combinations of advertising and search results on their pages. Ads are designed so they look like search results, though background color usually sets them apart. Many non-technical users/end users simply don’t recognize these paid listings for what they are.

In recent weeks the concern has been the “death” of organic search results for travel on Google. In other words, there is concern that the majority of results for the travel industry will be paid advertising. The question is: Will you be able to come up with truly organic search results when you seek travel information?

Will the big spenders with Google benefit from unique technical assistance so that they achieve better “organic” search engine placement?

As quick and efficient as Internet searches already were (even a few years ago) Google Instant Search came along as an effort to make the process move more quickly. In its simplest terms, this technology is designed to take viewers to the desired content before they finish typing the search term or keyword. Individuals certainly don’t have to go all the way to clicking on the “Search” button or pressing the “Enter” key.

While the benefits of this technology may seem obvious to many there are some Web-search aficionados and online business owners who have questions and concerns about Google Instant Search. The technology makes predictions and provides suggestions as to what a might be searching for. These features have cut typing and search time by 2 to 5 seconds, according to Google.

Great stuff, right? Not for everyone. It seems that some people still want to turn this feature off and this can be done through the “Search Settings” link. The company states that this doesn’t slow down the Internet process and adds that the experienced user will welcome the efficiency of Google Instant Search, especially because it doesn’t affect the ranking of search results.

Google Instant Search – For some the jury is still out.

If you’re trying to refine a search, but you’re not exactly sure how to refine it, you can click on the “Wonder Wheel” option. This generates a graphic representation of search results that show up as spokes coming off a hub that contains your search terms. If one of the spokes looks interesting or relevant, you can click it and it will generate its own little Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel has actually been around for almost a year now. I admit I never saw it until recently.

These changes to Google results pages are more evolutionary than revolutionary, but they are generating some excitement, as you can see if you search Twitter for “new Google results design.” For researchers in particular, these tools make finding stuff out quicker, easier, and more efficient.

Google’s goal in doing this was to keep the first SERP from being dominated by low-content sites. It is easy to see how some people would fear that SEO suddenly wouldn’t matter anymore, if you were going to search on, say, boots and have a first results page dominated by Uggs, Kenneth Cole, Kate Spade, and Tod’s. This wouldn’t do you much good if you wanted work boots.

But what seems to have happened is that there is more of an eclectic mix on the first SERP with searches on broad keywords, like health insurance. You can see in the three screen shots that the first results page has a mix of sponsored sites, big brands, informational pages, news results, and book results. The sky hasn’t fallen yet, but those who run hundreds of thin affiliate sites may want to be looking over their shoulders.

In your profile, make sure there’s a link to your actual website, not just your Facebook or MySpace page. Use your profile’s bio line, which is 160 characters, to your best advantage by making it relevant to your website and using keywords. Your bio is indexed, and what’s in your bio is what will or won’t give your Twitter profile its relevance. Additionally, your Twitter bio is your meta description, so make it count.

When you develop followers, don’t abandon them. Make sure to engage them and don’t just use your tweets to constantly push your products on people.