Google Search, Plus Your World

Google introduced this week “Search, Plus Your World” to provide more personalised search results to internet users that now will have access to personal information about their friends, included from the social networking service, when they enter a search query.

The famous search Google algorithm will now merge with the personal search algorithm and a personalized search algorithm. What does it mean? Basically, your search results will be a mixture of Google+ profiles and pages, your own personal photos and posts, and most significantly, anything that’s been shared with you on Google+. Google is going to retrieve listings from the web boosted by your personal behaviour and social connections. Some private content will now be visible in what seems to be a search across the entire web. “Search Plus Your World” doesn’t cover content on Facebook. Or Twitter or any other social network.

You will find 3 types of search results:

1.    Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts-both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page.

2.    Profiles in Search, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following.

3.    People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks.

From a SEO point of view, is this a good or a bad thing?

According to Rand Fishkin, CEO and Founder of SEOMoz social search is taking over the “pure SEO” tactics of accessibility, keyword research, content optimization and link-building.

Other SEO experts consider that now will be necessary to have two SEO strategies running parallel to each other; a personalised SEO strategy to target those affected by Search Plus, and a non-personalised SEO strategy to target those who are not affected.

Why did Google decide to add social media to their Search Engine?

A Nielsen Global Online consumer survey carried out in 2009 seems to be the source of inspiration for the changes. The survey concluded that 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 % trust consumer opinions posted online.

Will this work?

This new system has already been heavily criticised. The main reason why Google has become the main search engine, worldwide, is because it’s really good at returning relevant results for any given search query. That is the reason why I use Google. If I want to know what my friends think about a specific subject or product, I will approach them directly. When we use Google, we are mainly looking for information that is relevant to our search query.

The changes will make things harder because it will more difficult for your customers to find your website. To achieve good results, you have to get your Google+ brand page into as many influential people’s circles as possible and try to reach people outside of your immediate network.

Google wanted to gain market share in the social network market. They didn’t just wanted sit back and watch how Facebook and Twitter were becoming so powerful. So they decided to create their own social media network. With “Google Search, Plus Your World”, you can’t have search without social (unless you opt out) and, more often than not, Google+ results will be appearing before public listings, so users will feel “forced” to become an active member of the network. As many Online Marketing and internet experts have pointed out, by embedding Google+ into search, Google is essentially prodding people to join its social network out of SEO fear.

I don’t have problems with Google getting into social media and I think that the idea of having different spheres (circle) for each subject can facilitate the interaction with other members. I just don’t like the idea of including that information in the search results.

Google+ attempts to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012. That’s twice as many as Twitter. At present, the site has about 62 million users worldwide. They should have waited until Google+ is more relevant before integrating the social information with the search results. Or they could have added a social button as an alternative to the main search results, without mixing them, and including information from Facebook and Twitter, arguably the more active social networks.