Google are launching their new social sharing button with their Google +1 rating. When you are signed into your Google account you can “+1” websites that you and your friends have liked.
The plan is that other people can then see whether or not a website has received lots of +1 votes and you can choose whether or not you want to visit it based on the reviews of others. You have to have a Google account in order to +1 websites otherwise there will be no difference to your Google experience.
The +1 and SEO
Social metrics and Google are now going hand in hand and are having a greater impact upon the rankings. Google have been gradually getting in on the act and are using social media and bookmarking to determine rankings. The customer has become the total focus of the search engine and the site; sites are there to provide a service after all so they should be providing the best possible service to all its customers.
It is believed that the +1 button will affect search rankings, and therefore it will be an important tool for all website owners. It is thought that this will encourage website owners to create a site that is functioning well with all of the relevant information that the customer would need.
Lots of sites are already replacing the Google Buzz button with Google +1 button so that people can rate their sites and have this available for other people to see to both boost their rankings and encourage people to visit their sites.
The Negative Side of +1
Plenty of people are concerned that this will become abused easily. Having this rating system of course means that there is the possibility that people will create accounts to boost the amount of +1s on their sites. People are already offering these services online +1s and it remain to be seen how well Google will be able to keep an eye on these “bogus” accounts and how severe the punishment from them will be.
Like with so many new introductions by the search engines it becomes a waiting and guessing game to see how much effect the changes will have to page rankings and customer interaction. M.A.D will certainly be watching developments closely.?
As the law continues to tighten around ecommerce more and more directives are being brought in to improve the shopping experience of the customer. On the whole the online retailers have complied and agreed with the changes made because they have been concerned with fair business practise. However, some new directives that the EU were hoping to introduce were completely nonsensical and therefore received a huge level of rejection from the ecommerce industry.
The proposal of an EU directive that would see all online retailers having to sell to every EU state without question would be impractical and hard to regulate. Payment processing would become a more complicated task and some have argued that it leaves sites open to a greater level of fraud. The second blow then came in the shape of returns, the EU planned to have online retailers pay the return postage for any item with a value over 40 Euros, £34.80, which would be a stretch without the potential added pressure of having to post items to countries all over Europe.
The final proposal was a refund within 14 days which is something that most companies already offer but to make it legislation would mean no leeway and put further pressure on online retailers.
Many online retail associations strongly objected to these new proposals going ahead because they would cause significant problems for the ecommerce market. It is currently being rejected by the EU because of the huge numbers of objection and the fact that it was an unjustifiable change. This has yet to be fully finalised but it looks like this time the online retailers have triumphed over the EU madness.
Latest Industry News on Eu Cookie Directive: Part II
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is making changes to the way websites use/store cookies in the future, this was originally going to be enforced by the end of last month (May 2011).
However due to no clear route forward the enforcement has been extended and companies have been given another 12 months to make the necessary changes to their site. This change of approach has come about because the ICO realise that the procedure is not as straight forward as they originally believed.
The rights of the customer to have control over their personal information and where it can be stored is vital but not at the expense of the customers experience of the website. The extra 12 months is to give both developers & website owners the time to work out a solution to the new rules which will continue to make sense for both the website owner and the customer.
Although this does buy more time for all website owners, any sites that do not appear to making steps to change the way they use cookies and any that have not made the necessary changes by the final date will be penalised.
For further information please see the link below http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/pressreleases/2011/enforcement_cookies_rules_news_release_20110525.ashx
These new rules will affect all ecommerce website owners so it is important to start making the necessary changes once the appropriate strategy is established. Over the coming months MAD will keep our clients up to date, both providing recommendations and proposing the required changes.
The laws concerning the internet are being systematically tightened up, the web is no longer the place of the business it is now the place of the user. The laws are increasing the transparency of the internet and improving the rights of the consumer.
Recent laws have prevented businesses from using misleading or false advertising and now they are moving onto Web Company’s use of cookies. They are not banning cookies but they are going to make it the law that companies get the permission of the customer before they install any cookies on their computer. This is all part of the clamp down on the level of personal information that is held and distributed on the web.
It was announced this morning on Radio4 that there is to be a conference held in Manchester today to determine how this new system will be implemented. The aim is not to make the internet more complicated for the user but to give them greater control over their personal information stored on the web. If they choose not to have cookies installed on their computer then the site will not remember their preferences or billing information, it will be important for the European Law Council in their approach to consider the fact that your average user might not be familiar with cookies and their use. It is also to be hoped that the media do not turn this into a panic over privacy otherwise there could be a massive opt out and a drop in sales online. Let’s be honest how many times would you enter in your billing information before you decide that there must be a better easier way? However, with the correct information this law should not have too serious effect on the online companies and will improve the users experience and understanding of the internet.
The law will be coming into place on the 25th May 2011 and will affect UK sites, but sites owners are being granted a grace period to decide how they are going to approach website visitors regarding the use of cookies.
This new development has been highlighted on the BBC website as well as Radio4 this morning;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12668552
For further information please click on the link below;
http://www.ico.gov.uk/~/media/documents/pressreleases/2011/data_protection_officer_conference_news_release_08032011.ashx
For a while now Europe has been lagging behind the United States when it came to online sales, the American giants were out shopping us but that is looking set to change. It has been predicted that the online spending rate in Western Europe will increase up to 13% over the next year. The biggest spenders in 2010 were the Brits with 72% of the online population buying closely followed by the Netherlands and Sweden at 70%. The largest market on the web is consumer electronics, followed by books and clothes and not surprisingly ticket events with most people favouring a click to a phone call or a queue. The overall increase in sales in 2010 was approximately 18% and the forecasters believe that this will increase again with a further 13% buying online in 2011 with an average 10% increase year on year through to 2015.
57% of European adults buy online currently and this looks set to increase with so many people choosing to buy more and more online for a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is convenience; shoppers can find products and items that they would not normally be able to find on their local high street. Another major factor is price, however this is not as strong a reason as before because the web is not always cheaper than the high street and then there are the P&P costs. These may be the reasons that in Europe the average shopper still prefers the traditional retail experience of shopping on the high street.
The online retail market has been a strong contributor to the economic growth in the UK and if these statistics are anything to go by this is going to continue into the future with the focus gradually moving away from the high street to the web.
Source: Forrester/Mashable
