March has been a fairly quiet month for Google Webmaster but none the less one significant feature has cropped up which Google Webmaster predicts will enhance users’ experiences significantly: the +1 button. Google Webmaster also has a few other updates for you.
Page Speed for Chrome
Google Webmaster has introduced a Page Speed performance tool to make performance suggestions in making users sites work faster inside the Chrome browser. Already 1.4 million users are using the Page Speed extension finding it useful with their web performance diagnosis. Another feature that Google Webmaster has also introduced is the ability to link this tool to mobile versions of pages, in particular smartphones. Mobile recommendations for heightened speeds include eliminating uncacheable landing page redirects and reducing the amount of JavaScript parsed during the page load.
TV Show Tags
For authoritative sourced websites of video or TV shows, Google Webmaster is asking users to submit Video Sitemaps or mRSS feeds. This will make it known that there is video content on the websites, as well as there now being additional fields present where users can specify metadata specific to television or episodic content. The metadata ultimately helps Webmaster to provide more detailed, relevant results for users wanting to watch the users show.
The +1 Button
Google introduces the +1 button, a new feature which allows users to show others when content found is useful. Google users can recommend content from the search results pages, and shortly from websites too. The idea is simple and involves the user, once signed in, simply clicking on the +1 button when they come across something useful. When friends or contacts conduct similar searches on Google, they will see that the particular site or result has been nominated for its usefulness.