Public
Jan 26, 2012
I was excited in November to be part of the team that created the Google+ badge. Since then, it's been amazing to see the boost that a highly-visible badge can give to a +Page's followers -- 38% when we recently looked at the top sites. That launch was just the beginning, and we heard loud and clear that the badge needed to be more flexible, so it would fit better into a range of site designs. Now I'm thrilled to say that we're starting to roll out a badge that offers more configuration options, like more sizes and an option that's more suitable to darker sites. So add a Google+ badge to your site, make sure it's readily visible, and see user engagement with your +Page grow!
http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-options-for-google-badges.html
#googleplusupdate
http://googleplusplatform.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-options-for-google-badges.html
#googleplusupdate
View 38 previous comments
+Lucy Hadden As far as I can tell, I'm able to make a badge. It gives me code which I can use, at least. The gray box is always a gray box except in the very beginning when it's a gray box with words in it. But those go away once I enter the ginormous long string of numbers that google uses to identify me instead of just using my username. If something is supposed to be happening in the gray box other than it being gray, that's not happening. (I'm using Google Chrome 16.0.912.77 on a Mac which is running OSX 10.7.3)
... I just put an icon on my page and when I went to make it, I did notice that that showed up in the gray box. The other two types of badges don't.Feb 5, 2012
+Lucy Hadden. Thanks, yes I did notice that once the update (launch) was completed. Thank you very much for your reply. Now I see how it works.
I do wonder however if to the left of the red badge it should say the name the name of my website or should it say 'We're on' like it does now.
I think someone else in another post brought up the fact that their website name is there rather than 'We're on', as is on my website. Or should this even matter?
Also, I have a different number for the +1 button that I have had in the right side of my website that I had before I added the badge. As I mentioned somewhere earlier (maybe in another post? ) I believe I had read somewhere is one of the Google help posts that we didn't need to remove the +1 button whenwe added the badge, that it would give users/visitors two places to interact with your site.
I would rather have visitors add my Google+ page and for that number to be added to my Google+ badge count than to just add a +1 via the +1 button. Do these two compete with each other?
As I mentioned above the Google+ badge count for +1s and the +1 button count are different, so it appears the two may be competing against each other. Otherwise, why the difference in the numbers/totals?
Thanks again for you helpful replies here. I appreciate getting to understand how these work.Feb 6, 2012
+meg dunn Hm. If the gray box never shows a badge even after you put in the long string of numbers, something is definitely not working. The configuration tool will generate code, but it then renders exactly that generated code in the gray box. So if the code isn't rendering there, it won't render on your page, either. Are you putting in the ID for your personal profile? Because the badges won't work for personal profiles, just for +Pages. Icons, as you see, will work (mostly because there's no check there for page IDs vs personal IDs).
+Sean McGuire The "We're on" vs "[company name] on" is strictly a matter of the width of the badge and the length of your company's name. If you go to "advanced options" in the configuration tool, and enter a width that's >300px (the default), you can see how wide a badge you'd need to show your full company name. But then you'd need to give the badge that much real estate on your page.
The +1 button and badge shouldn't compete with each other. The badge shows both the number of people who +1'd the page and the people who've added it to circles; I'm not sure that the +1 button does the same -- it may only show the +1s. So that would account for the difference in numbers. (The badge and your +Page should have matching numbers; they do report the same thing.)Feb 7, 2012
+Lucy Hadden First I would like to thank you for your reply. It makes complete sense now.
Curious, were you responsible for my account being disabled (or whatever it's called)?
After another infuriating experience with Google's silly "something appears to be wrong. please try again" error message when trying to post here earlier I finally saw in my profile a very general, nonspecific message (I don't know anyone that would look in their profile unless they planned on adding / changing something, so it was quite a while before I found it) saying something was wrong with either my name or something else in my profile (yes, those were the options). I edited out the business name in the 'A brief description of you' field thinking that might be the issue and it appears it likely was.
I see that done often in the profiles of other people that circle me, there business name or their website address (which should have a business page like any other business/blog/website) under their personal names. In fact, that's where I got the idea and I just added it to mine a couple of days ago.
It would really have been nice if I was just notified that that was a problem and I would have edited it out.
This has really left such a bad taste in my mouth that I have about lost interest in continuing with anything to do with Google.
The other day I was trying to comment to a post from my business profile and rather than getting an error message saying something humane like 'business profiles aren't allowed to comment here. Please comment from your personal profile', I got an error message saying "Something appears to be wrong. Please try again.", and that is just what I did, I tried again. And again, and again. In fact, I kept trying because I didn't know that I wasn't allowed to comment from a business profile so that never came to mind, and I thought something was wrong with my connection or something like that. Infuriating.
I am new to being active in social media and am learning as I go along. I am so utterly put off by the way this was communicated that I'm finding it hard to express what I want to say.
I can think of no risk or potential for abuse by communicating with users in a rational manner when something is wrong rather than making us feel like unwelcomed criminals.
I don't mean to give out to you but I am really offended by the way this was communicated. I know Google may feel they are invincible but I'm sure anyone else would feel the same. If minor errors on the part of users are going to continue to be dealt with like major offences I don't think that will go over with users too well in the long run.
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Following is what I had tried to post earlier (I'm not so hopeful now):
Thank you so much again for your helpful explanation. It makes complete sense now. I am so glad that it is working like it's supposed to!
Now I need to figure out a way to get local people (San Francisco Bay Area) to add us to their circles, haha! (<sarcasm> moving is such an exiting topic for people that they are lining up to hear about it.)</sarcasm>
I wonder if you can create a widget of some sort that can show a stream of posts that we post on our Google+ page (Google+ business page), so we post updates, specials, holiday greetings or whatnot on our Google+ page and have it show in this stream on our website. This enables us to use our Google+ business page to interact with users, without feeling like we have to decide whether to spend more time on our Google+ page or on our website in order to perform the same objectives.
I like the whole Google+ idea for anything and everything. It's just that now we have to find the time to try to keep up with both of them at the same time as the day to day operations of running the business (hiring out for this is no longer an option for us as we have been ripped off royally in the past few years by various so called SEO and website experts, so we have been learning to do these things ourselves such as; on-site and off-site SEO, HTML, CSS, javascript, Python and other programming languages that are widely used these days; and applying these things as we learn them).
Thank you again for your help.
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Although my sentiments at this point are not so positive. I did "like the whole Google+ idea". I was feeling pretty passionate about Google and Google+. Now, not so much.
Thanks for letting me vent.
</vent>Feb 8, 2012
can confirm the above-mentionned problem: nothing appears neither in the preview box, nor on my website after having correctly implemented the code.
Frustrating. It's not rocket science, we're talking about a badge here. And they can play a crucial role in spreading G+. Look at how easy it is to implement facebook or twitter badges, and they look good too!Feb 11, 2012
Hi. It's possible to have a badge in my website with a transparent background?! I don't like the white (light) or black (dark) themes background colors ... If someone can explain how to remove that background color with will be wonderful to everyone that have websites with different colors ... Thanks for helping!Mar 3, 2012