Google Friend Connect was a free social networking site, active from 2008 to 2012. Similar to Facebook Platform and MySpaceID, it allowed users to build a profile to share and update information through messaging, photographs and video content via third-party sites which acted as a host for profile sharing and social exchanges.

Google Friend Connect used open standards such as OpenID, OAuth and OpenSocial allowing usage with no registration, once authenticated they could use their existing profile and access a social graph when posting messages, the social graph feature allowed a user to post a message on a third-party site, but allowed viewing access only to other authorized "friends" contained within the user's chosen social graph.

Google Friend Connect was removed for all non-Blogger sites by March 1, 2012, and for Blogger sites on January 11, 2016.

The Google Friend Connect API allowed website owners to query the content of user profiles, and provide website content from Hi5, Orkut, Plaxo, MySpace, Google Talk, Netlog, Twitter, and YouTube, along with ads tailored to the specific user via HTML/JavaScript "gadgets" into their pages

These "gadgets" included Social Bar, Comments, Ratings and Reviews, Featured Content, Interests' Poll, Recommendations, Events and Games. In June 2009, Google added a gadget called ClackPoint, which offered live text chat, conference calling and document sharing, including simultaneous editing by multiple users. A Community Widget was also offered, allowing website owners to include content from partner sites, similarly to other widgets such as BlogCatalog and Facebook Fan Pages.

As of 2011, it was estimated that approximately 200,000 websites used Google Friend Connect, with 2889 of them in the top million visited sites on the Internet. However Google estimated that over 5 million sites used Google Friend Connect. It was also claimed that 99% of sites were said to not be socially enabled prior to the introduction of Google Friend Connect.

Google Friend Connect was first previewed at Google Campfire One on 13th May 2008 and launched within days of Facebook Platform. In December 2008, Google Friend Connect went into beta. Independent musician Ingrid Michaelson's official website was one of the first websites used as a prototype by Google to illustrate features from Google Friend Connect.

On November 23, 2011, Google's Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Hölzle announced that Friend Connect would be retired for all non-Blogger sites by March 1, 2012, and encouraged the now defunct Google+'s pages and off-site Page badges as the preferred alternative. On December 21, 2015, Google software engineer Michael Goddard announced that the service would be turned off on Blogger on January 11, 2016, stating that "we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account."