image courtesy of Catchpoint

The slow-loading Google+ plug-in that significantly drags page load time just got a jump start.

Google has announced a news set of tools it claims will make the button render up to 3X faster. Indeed, data from our friends at Catchpoint are showing significant improvement in load time – if not quite as much as Google claims.

Even if the +1 button does load twice as quickly as before, it’s important to bear in mind that in aggregate, social plug-ins can significantly reduce page load speed.