The button only shows up when you hover the mouse over a result

Dec 12, 2011 15:31 GMT  ·  By

In an interesting move, Google has removed the +1 button from its search results page. The button only shows up when a user hovers the mouse over a particular result, now.

Previously, there was a +1 button next to every search result, enticing users to highlight the links that they found interesting or useful. There's no way of knowing how popular +1 button has been, either on Google Search or elsewhere.

The move guarantees a cleaner results page, which has always been a huge goal at Google, but it also means that the button is less visible and, presumably, less clicked.

Considering the amount of effort, and money, Google is putting into Google+ along with the +1 button, the move is fairly surprising.

But it does bode well for the company since it indicates that it is not willing to sacrifice all of its core beliefs just to have a shot at beating Facebook, or at least keeping up with it.

Earlier this year, the introduction of the +1 button marked a new beginning for Google. No one, outside of Google, knew it at the time, but it would be the first sign of Google+, the first big social product from Google that is not a complete failure.

For the +1 button's big launch, the first product to tackle Facebook, at least one of its features, head on, Google integrated it with its search engine and nothing else.

Other websites were allowed to add their own +1 buttons a couple of months later. Since then, the button has become fairly used. And, with the launch of Google+ and its moderate success, there's even a reason to use the +1 button on your site.

In fact, it seems that Google is so confident in the +1 button that it's ready to shed its ties, slightly, to its most popular product yet, the search engine. Whether that's because the +1 button is so popular elsewhere that it doesn't need any more help, or whether it proved itself unsuccessful and no amount of help from Google Search will help it, remains to be seen.