To ensure you get what you pay for, SEO Shop says that all of the +1's you purchase come from real people with verified accounts (verified through a manual process). Each +1 also comes from a unique IP address, and +1's are spread out over several days. In other words, Google will have a hard time discerning which +1's are legitimate, and which ones are generated by a company such as Plussem.

A Shady Practice

How Plussem gets all of your +1's isn't too clear. Alexis Madrigal writes that the outfit is paying "a ton of very poor people with Internet access in developing countries a tiny slice of the money you would have to spend on traditional marketing." While this is probably speculation, I imagine it's also pretty close to the truth.

Paying for +1's is also a violation of . According to Google's +1 website, "Publishers should not promote prizes, monies, or monetary equivalents in exchange for +1 Button clicks."

I think it's pretty safe to say that the only reason SEO Shop is undertaking an effort such as this is because of the success of Google+. Before Google+, there really wasn't much of a value in gaming Google's social recommendation system--but now, with +1 playing such a significant role in the hottest new social network, it's valuable. And, of course, on top of all that it (might) be connected to search relevancy.