Google +1 has launched for news sites, allowing users logged in to their Google account to recommend articles and sites to contacts, similar to the way Facebook’s ‘like’ button permits Facebook contacts to see a person’s favourite stories.

When someone with a Google account clicks the +1 button the page will then be privileged in relevant searches performed by that person’s Google contacts.

Google-owned sites, including Android Market, Blogger, Product Search and YouTube have added the button along with news sites including the Washington Post, Google announced on its blog.

We asked via Twitter which UK sites have already added the button and the Lincolnite, Made for Mums, Cooking with Mrs K and Kelvin Taylor’s blog all responded to tell us they had installed the button.

ReadWriteWeb, in this post, predicts +1 will be good for news sites but feels it may not work.

Is this compelling for website owners? Yes, probably. For web users who would click the button? That’s much less clear. For search users? Time will tell, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

You can add the +1 button by copying a line of code. This post explains how.