They are three buttons relating to Twitter, Facebook and Google +.
Wanting to know more I started a search to find out more as this seemed like another new change to Googles recent overhaul.
Ed Dale a website business pro has described the situation briefly:
You young’uns have been living in a search summer for the past three and a half years. You don’t remember what a search winter is like.
The last search winter hit in the summer of 2006 and didn’t thaw until 2009. It started with the decimation of the ad sense review sites.
Most of you won’t remember the fatal summer Google teetered on becoming unusable – every search term was littered with adsense looking to make every click a winner. It was horrible and Google needed to act.
Google had no choice; it was kill or be killed. Keep this in mind…
Sites providing high PR links for pay were hunted down like none would survive
The power of Google and its market domination was built on back links and the ability of Google to give those back links an authority rating.
Google Algorithm changes 2011
In 2012 things are a changing.
Backlinks have become more of an SEO trick, that old style bloggers and SEO freaks are probably the only people benefiting from this.
However when you compare this to the Facebook and Re-tweet buttons you see on sites you know that everybody uses them and although these users may only use face-book, twitter and Google + those links get used by everyone.
Google have realised this well and are adapting to this circumstance.
This is going to change if it hasn’t already to a situation where back links have less link juice than social networking approval, so if you only have one source of traffic to your site you need to take this in.
It will still be important to provide interesting and original content to your site and this has always been the correct use of Googles search system. Your site should be a business that has some growth a get rich quick scheme will not work well in this environment.
You also need to be an influencer within your field and that means at least including a nod towards Google +, twitter and face book in your audience.
This should work out well for everybody eventually as search results will be improved as more relevant content is ranked higher.
Will this also continue the lowest common denominator website trend and gradual dumbing down of information that social networking websites eventually and inevitably promote?
I hope not, because we don't need another bland web site any more than we need another bland website.
Time will tell . . .