Jun 2, 2011 08:57 GMT  ·  By

As expected, Google has unveiled its +1 button for websites and is making the code available to anyone wanting to add the functionality to their sites. Google has also partnered with several sites to launch the new phase of the program.

"Since we started rolling out the +1 button in March, you’ve been able to recommend content to your friends and contacts directly from Google search results and ads. But sometimes you want to +1 a page while you’re on it," Evan Gilbert, software engineer at Google working on the +1 Button, wrote.

"Today, we’re releasing +1 buttons to the whole web. As a result, you might start seeing +1 appear on sites large and small across the Internet. We’ve partnered with a few sites where you’ll see +1 buttons in the near future," he announced.

The announcement comes as little surprise. Google said it will eventually launch a button for the web, when it debuted the +1 button in the search results.

The +1 button should start showing up on websites you visit, next to news articles, reviews, products and where ever else the Facebook Like button is likely to show up.

Since it has Google behind it, the new button should get some traction initially, but it remains to be seen if this is enough to make it a success and get people to actually start using it.

If you're interested in implementing the +1 button for your website, you can check out the page Google set up for webmasters. You get to customize the size and look of the button and there are a couple of more advanced options as well.

The +1 recommendations only show up on Google.com for now and only in the English version. The +1 button for search results is still only available if you opt-in and is not enabled by default.