Google Removes +1 Button from Search Results Page, Adds Share Button

In an interesting change I noticed over the weekend – it seems Google has removed the +1 button from Google Search Results and replaced it with a simple ‘Share’ text.

(You have to be signed in with your Google account to see this)

Eg:

This is interesting for Google to specifically remove the +1 button from their own search engine. I would have thought they want to get as much exposure and branding to their +1 button to drive engagement and Google Plus signups.

Maybe they are experimenting with this Share text to see if it will indeed drive more shares. If you press this Share text it acts exactly like the +1 button.

But you could draw some more conclusions, such as:

Google will add more sharing services to Google search? (unlikely).
Google is going to release more sharing options than just the +1, eg Reshare

Who knows.