Google this week introduced an experimental "Share" button that appears in place of the +1 button in English-language search results, allowing Google+ users to share and comment on website links directly with their Google+ friends.
"You can then choose if you want to share [a website link] publicly or just to your Circles and it will post to your Google+ stream, making it easier for you to share directly from the search results page," Google's Sean Liu wrote in a Google+ post.
The "experiment" directly ties together the company's search and social networking platforms more than ever before.
It wasn't clear how rapidly or comprehensively the new Share button was being rolled out to users in different locales. It was already populating search results for at least some U.K. users on Wednesday. AutoTrader U.K. executive Berian Reed tweeted about an early sighting and posted a screen grab that was picked up by SearchEngineLand later in the day.
On Thursday at around midday, Google Web searches in PCMag's New York headquarters yielded a glimpse of the gray, blink-and-you'll-miss it Share button, but the old +1 button was still turning up in our San Francisco office (see screenshots at right).
Like the +1 button before it, the Share link lights up in a muted gray on the URL line of a search result when you move your cursor over the title line. When you move the cursor over the button, it turns red and clicking on it produces a pop-up box that invites you to share the relevant website's link on your Google+ stream and add a comment if you choose.
Google actually introduced Share for Google+ in April as a button for third-party website owners to add to their sites via code available at Google's Developers site.
At the time, Google pitched the Share button as good for content that users might want to share, but not endorse with a "+1" —such as news or controversial items.
"When your visitors come across something interesting on your site, sometimes you want to encourage a simple endorsement (like +1). Other times, however, you want to help visitors share with their friends, right away. Today's new Google+ Share button lets you do just that," Rick Borovoy, product manager for Google+, wrote in a blog post introducing the button on April 25.
Intriguingly, the Share link on search results has already turned up somewhere else—on the illustrated guide to search results on Google's support forum (see screenshot). That's obviously a carefully curated FAQ, but the quickness with which this experiment turns up in Google's own Bible of Search makes you wonder how experimental it really is.
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