Yesterday, Google's Rob Spiro published a post on The Official Google Blog explaining a new search feature called +1. +1 is a button, much like the Facebook Like button, that can be added to content pages. Users who click the +1 button are giving that content a direct recommendation to Google.

It's refreshing to hear Google talking openly about features to help us gain better page rank, and it also begs the question... How are they going to stop this feature being abused by the black hat brigade?

Google has made several improvements to their algorithm lately. One of the issues they are trying to combat is the ability to determine automated backlinks from genuine content recommendations. Google has historically seen links from one website to another as a recommendation that the linked to content must be good. However these links can be auto generated, thus allowing sites to cheat their way to the top of the search results. It's not clear what measures Google has in place to stop the +1 buttons being used in the same illegal way, although the buzz on seo forums seems to suggest that the button will be easily abused.

At the moment, the buttons have only been made available to a trial group of users, the rest of us may have to wait a couple of months before we can start adding +1s to our content. If you want to be notified when the buttons are available, you can register with Google here.

What do you think, will you be adding the little fella?