Trade of Google+1 "Likes" as a Business

siliconbits writes "Selling Google+1 "likes" is gradually becoming a rather lucrative business, helped by cheap labour and ever-falling internet access worldwide; the trend is not unlike what we saw previously with Twitter & Digg during the days except that this has a more widespread implication for SEO and could turn the nascent social networking service into a massive headache for Google as many try to game the system. Google+1 selling sites like Googleplus1supply, buygoogleplus1 or Blackcatseo have cropped up during the last few months — amongst so many other websites — with the sole aim of selling Google+1 "likes" to publishers and businesses."

Comments

Re:should be a simple fix

[Anonymous Coward]

Or even better - actually pay one of the services for +1s relating to some fake/obscure unlikable thing, and ban every user that +1s it.

Re:Not really a problem..

[MozeeToby]

Someone mod this up for God's sake. It shows that Google not only realized the potential for the problem but even addressed it before the beta began. Not to mention it shows exactly how Google intends to monetize Google+, by personalizing search results based on what a self-selected group of people similar to you enjoy.

Re:should be a simple fix

[NoSig]

Don't ban them, just don't count their +1s until the behavior of the account gives sufficient evidence that it is legit. The humans who erroneously get flagged as possible bots wouldn't even know it and there would be no adverse impact on them. Since there is no ban, it's not as clear to the SEOs what it was that tipped Google off.