Doing more with the +1 button, more than 4 billion times a day

(Cross posted to the Official Google Blog and the Inside AdWords Blog)

In June we launched the +1 button for websites, making it easier to recommend content across the web. In July, the +1 button crossed 2 billion daily views, and we also made it a lot faster. Today the +1 button appears on more than a million sites, with over 4 billion daily views, and we're extremely excited about this momentum.

It's just the beginning, however, and today we're launching two more features that make +1 buttons more useful for users and publishers alike.

Sharing with your circles on Google+
Clicking the +1 button is a great way to highlight content for others when they search on Google. But sometimes you want to start a conversation right away—at least with certain groups of friends. So beginning today, we're making it easy for Google+ users to share webpages with their circles, directly from the +1 button. Just +1 a page as usual and look for the new "Share on Google+" option. From there you can comment, choose a circle and share.

The new +1 button on Rotten Tomatoes

+Snippets
When you share content from the +1 button, you’ll notice that we automatically include a link, an image and a description in the sharebox. We call these "+snippets," and they're a great way to jumpstart conversations with the people you care about.

Of course: publishers can benefit from +snippets as well. With just a few changes to their webpages, publishers can actually customize their +snippets and encourage more sharing of their content on Google+. More details are available on the Google Webmaster blog.



We're rolling out sharing and +snippets globally over the next week, but if you’d like to try the new +1 button now, you can join our Google+ Platform Preview. Once you're part of the Preview, just visit a site with the +1 button (like Rotten Tomatoes) and +1 the page. Thanks for all of your feedback so far, and stay tuned for more features in the weeks and months ahead!

The +1 Button: Now Faster

One of the 10 things we hold to be true here at Google is that fast is better than slow. We keep speed in mind in all things that we do, and the +1 button is no exception. Since the button’s launch, we have been hard at work improving its load time. Today, we’re proud to announce two updates that will make both the +1 button and the page loading it, faster.

First, we’ve begun to roll out out a set of changes that will make the button render up to 3x faster on your site. No action is required on your part, so just sit back, relax, and watch as the button loads more quickly than before.

In addition to the improvements made to the button, we’re also introducing a new asynchronous snippet, allowing you to make the +1 experience even faster. The async snippet allows your web page to continue loading while your browser downloads the +1 JavaScript. By loading these elements in parallel, we’re ensuring the HTTP request to get the +1 button JavaScript doesn’t lead to an increase in your page load time. For those of you who have already implemented the button, you’ll need to update the code to the new async snippet, and then you should see an overall improvement in your page load time.

To generate the new async snippet, use our +1 Configuration Tool. Below, you’ll find an example of the code, which should be included below the last /g:plusone tag on your page.

If you haven’t already implemented the +1 button on your site, we’re excited for your first experience to be a fast one. This is a great opportunity to allow your users to recommend your site to their friends, potentially bringing in more qualified traffic from Google search. To those that already have the button, we hope that you enjoy the improvements in speed. Our team will continue to work hard to enhance the +1 button experience as we know that “fast is better than slow” is as true today as it’s ever been.

If you have any questions, please join us in the Webmaster forum. To receive updates about the +1 button, please subscribe to the Google Publisher Buttons Announce Group. For advanced tips and tricks, check our Google Code site.

Add +1 to help your site stand out

(Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central and Social Web blogs)

When we introduced the +1 button in March, Google search took a small step in an important direction. Search results can be more helpful, and more personal, when recommendations from the people you trust are there to guide your way.

The +1 button can help publishers, too. As potential visitors see recommendations from their friends and contacts beneath your Google search results, you could see more, and better qualified, traffic coming from Google.

Since we announced +1, we’ve gotten lots of requests from Google search users and webmasters alike for +1 buttons in more places than just search results. That’s why today we’re making the +1 button available to sites across the web. Sometimes you want to recommend a web page after you’ve visited it. After all, how do you know you want to suggest that great article on Spanish tapas if you haven’t read it yet?

We’ve partnered with a few sites where you’ll see +1 buttons over the coming days:

You'll also start to see +1 buttons on other Google properties such as Android Market, Blogger, Product Search and YouTube.

Adding +1 buttons to your pages is a great way to help your content stand out in Google search. By giving your visitors more chances to +1 your pages, your search results and search ads could show up with +1 annotations more often, helping users see when your pages are most likely to be useful.

 

To get started, visit the +1 button tool on Google Webmaster Central. You’ll be able to configure a small snippet of JavaScript and add it to the pages where you want +1 buttons to appear. You can pick from a few different button sizes and styles, so choose the +1 button that best matches your site’s layout.

In the common case, a press of the button +1’s the URL of the page it’s on. We recommend some easy ways to ensure this maps as often as possible to the pages appearing in Google search results.

If your site primarily caters to users outside of the US and Canada, you can install the +1 button code now; the +1 button is already supported in 44 languages. However, keep in mind that +1 annotations currently only appear for English search results on Google.com. We’re working on releasing +1 to searchers worldwide in the future.

If you have users who love your content (and we bet you do), encourage them to spread the word! Add the +1 button to help your site stand out with a personal recommendation right at the moment of decision, on Google search.

To stay current on updates to the +1 button large and small, please subscribe to the Google Publisher Buttons Announce Group. For advanced tips and tricks, check our Google Code site. Finally, if you have any questions about using the +1 button on your websites, feel free to drop by the Webmaster Help Forum.

Mobile Sitemaps answers the call

Back in August, we recommended using Google Sitemaps to help Google crawl your content pages. Since then, Sitemaps has been updated to support mobile website URLs. We know that more users are searching the web from their cell phones and more publishers are creating web pages designed specifically for mobile devices. So, you can now use Google Mobile Sitemaps to tell Google about your new and changed mobile web pages, and increase your coverage in our mobile web index. (Incidentally, you can search through these mobile-specific websites using Google Mobile Web Search on your phone.)

Put your pages on the map

Driving traffic to your site is certainly essential to maximizing your AdSense earnings. We get lots of emails asking, "How can I get more traffic from Google search results?" and "Why aren't some of my pages found by Google's search crawlers?" While we do not guarantee inclusion in the Google index, we do have a new product that will help to ensure Google is aware of all of your content pages.

Google Sitemaps enables you to directly inform Google about when you make changes to your web pages or create new ones. That, in turn, enables Google to crawl your site more effectively and comprehensively. This helps site owners solve two current challenges :

1. Keeping Google informed of all of your new web pages or updates;
2. Increasing the coverage of your web pages in the Google index

Learn more here.