Add To Google & Save To Yahoo My Web Buttons Out

Nick at Threadwatch discovers
a new Add To
Google button, while I’m also overdue to discuss the new
Save To My Web
button that Yahoo kindly rolled out last month. Let’s jump in!

The new Add To Google button is easy to implement. Fill out the
form at
Google, then you get the appropriate HTML. Insert the button on your home page,
then when people click, they are directed to add your feed to either their
personalized edition of the Google homepage or
Google Reader. Adding it to
Google Sidebar, sadly, isn’t a third option. That should be supported as well.
Hopefully, we’ll see it come.

As for the new Yahoo button, Yahoo
announced it at
the end of last month. In fact, I’d been asking them for one publicly, so they
came back in that post and specifically called me out to say "Here it is!" But I
was on vacation at the time, hence me playing catch-up!

It’s very welcomed. My Web is the future of where search is heading at Yahoo,
as A Search
Marketer’s Look At Yahoo My Web 2.0 covers in more depth. Getting your pages
added and part of the trust networks that My Webbians are building over there is
important. This button makes it easy to encourage that type of saving.

To get the button, there’s no form to fill out. You just grab JavaScript code
from here. That
puts a little button on your site. When people push it, your page title will be
grabbed, along with the URL and some suggested tags for saving the page under.

Nick at Threadwatch has gone a step further. He’s used the code to make a
link-text only version of the save to my web feature. He discusses it more
here, and the code is
here.

Why not just use the button? By using Nick’s code, you can custom the text of
the link, in case you want to give people more instructions. For example, look
over in our left-hand navigation area. I’ve used both the button plus Nick’s
code underneath, altering it to stress that this is "Yahoo" My Web, something
the button doesn’t say.

Down the line, I want to move that type of code over to the bottom of posts,
to help encourage people to save them. Having that as a textual link makes it a
bit easier. And if you’re going to do it for My Web, why not for bookmarking
service Del.icio.us? That’s easily done through this
code spotted
via Threadwatch.

Are all these buttons worthwhile? I still can’t tell if they are driving that
many sign-ups, but I’ve fallen into the "learn to love them" category. While
having one unified sign-up system might be better, if having an Add To Google or
Add To Yahoo button means I’m going to get some additional visitors who
recognize what that means, I’m going for it.

Want to love buttons yourself? See

Getting Add To & Subscribe Buttons For Feeds, which I’ve posted for Search
Engine Watch members.
It takes you to the forms for popular services, so that you can merrily make
your own badges.