How helpful is the google plus button for rankings?
I always disregarded it...but maybe i shouldnt have. Any experience with it?

Also, if it is a helpful tool, is it worth buying clicks for it?

one site I tried it with on local seo, before installing it the site was at position 5, after installing it and getting +1's it is now number 2

there was no additional linking done at that time only the +1's

so I would say try it, it can only help

I haven't seen any real ranking increases, even with my tests of larger number of them...

But I'm still adding them to my prime domains as future-proofing and part of my social-signals strategy.

Originally Posted by jascoken

I haven't seen any real ranking increases, even with my tests of larger number of them...

But I'm still adding them to my prime domains as future-proofing and part of my social-signals strategy.

same prob here,,,

I'm starting to doubt, I've got quite a bit of +1s on one of my blogs on every article and the main google link but it's still fairly lowly ranked.

There was a research done by a website, and the below are its results:

CONCLUSION
Over the course of 60 days we sent 2500 visitors to 5 different variations of the same opt-in form. We sent 500 visitors to each of the 5 phases to give us a good enough sampling to provide statistics that could be relied upon as more than mere chance.
Based on the results of the study it is conclusive that, devoid of any other influence, Social Signals do increase conversion rates. Beginning at Phase 1 with no social signals the conversion rate started at 1.2%, by the end of Phase 5 with 400+ social signals the conversion rate settled at 7.2%.
We can reasonably conclude that, in this study, Social Signals increased the opt-in conversion rate by 6%

Also, Google Plus 1s help in increasing ctr

See proof here

It does make a difference in movement as well... I tested a 1year old sub.domain.com with no marketing... got 100 unique +1 and moved up the list from page 10 to page 2 within a month.

I know have it on every page of every site I own...

Just my personal experience with it