Optimizing Google Reader +1's for Search Results
Google recently announced a redesign of its Google Reader service, a popular choice for internet users following multiple RSS feeds. Among the changes, Google replaced Reader's built-in sharing and recommendation features with a set tied to its Google+ service. Now, Google Reader users are presented with +1 button to recommend feed posts.
My initial reaction to the inclusion of a +1 button was positive--clicks from +1 buttons can influence presentation of search results (see The +1 button and search results), so the more opportunities readers have click +1 buttons the better. However, the way google implemented the plus one for Google Reader users is fairly simplistic. To the extent I have observed, when a user clicks +1 in Google Reader, that plus one is counted towards the plus total of whatever URL the user would initial be directed to after clicking the article's link in the feed. The problem is that for many feeds, that link is not the same as the eventual link the user is redirected to, and is not the canonical URL for the item of content. In some cases, the feed's url is deliberately different for purposes of traffic analysis or feed delivery optimization.
As it stands, this implementation results in two consequences of which webmasters should be aware. First, if the initial URL for feed content is not the canonical URL served to users and appearing in search results, +1's collected in Google Reader will not count towards the page's main +1 count. Not counting towards that main page count could be consequential in search results. Second, if a special URL is being used to track feed traffic, shares of the feed URL via google reader will also be included. Such may or may not be desirable.
If your feed does not include the canonical URL of your content, and you do not have a reason why are using a different URL, you should change it so that web and Google Reader plus ones will collect in one place for the content. Google should be able to address this problem by pre-fetching redirects and correlating the URLs together on the backend. Hopeful they will consider doing so, which will maximize the utility of this Google Reader improvement to feed-producing webmasters.