Google Plus One is Google’s own recommendation network: if you are logged in to your Google account, you can “plus one” websites in the Google search results and from the websites themselves. This adds you to a list of people who have recommended that page, which makes up a total count of “plus ones” a page has got. Google then uses this data to help advise your friends (people you are linked to through any social accounts you have connected with your Google account) on what they are searching for, i.e. anything that has been plus one-d will be shown higher in the search results.

Google Base, or Google Merchant Center, is Google’s own shopping directory. This is one of the best ways to get your products into the Google search results. If you search for a product in the normal Google search, you are likely to get results from websites that have submitted their products to Google Base in addition to the regular search results. Google Base results are more prominent than the normal results as instead of just a text description, they also are shown with an image of the product, the price and where you can buy it.