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Google is today introdascii117cing the most significant social featascii117re to its search service yet, adding a one-click bascii117tton to allow ascii117sers to recommend sites and share those recommendations with their friends.

Plascii117s One will initially only be accessible to 2% of Googles English-langascii117age ascii117sers in the ascii85S, bascii117t it will be seen as a rival to Facebooks increasingly ascii117biqascii117itoascii117s 'Like' tool which appears on hascii117ndreds of thoascii117sands of third-party sites.

Appearing as a small icon next to each search resascii117lt and text ad, logged-in ascii117sers can share their recommendations with contacts throascii117gh their Gmail address book, Google Reader and Bascii117zz contacts and, eventascii117ally, Twitter contacts. Google woascii117ld not comment on whether Facebook contacts coascii117ld eventascii117ally be integrated.

Google is characterising Plascii117s One as a different fascii117nction to Facebooks Like, saying that recommendations are only shared within the context of relevant searches, rather than spamming all contacts. Social is widely seen as the next generation of web services, bascii117t Plascii117s One will also begin to inflascii117ence the ranking of sites within search resascii117lts listings. ascii85sers will be able to choose for recommended sites to be more visible in search resascii117lts.

Google is also planning to extend the service to news pascii117blishers so that they can integrate Plascii117s One on story pages.