Google has always been synonymous to search . In 2011 the integration of social signals to search was the most common topic of the SEO blogosphere and everyone was trying to figure out how the social signals will be integrated into search results.
Google just yesterday announced on their Inside Search blog that : “…We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships….” Of course this endeavor of Google started in October 2009 and has been working on it since then.
Yesterday a major change has been announced and three new features as follows have been implemented:
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.
Profiles in Search: both in autocomplete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following.
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. Because behind most every query is a community.
Together, these features combine to create Search plus Your World.
Google says: Search is simply better with your world in it, and we’re just getting started….
The change is live now, though not everyone will see it until it fully launches over the next few days. It’s only for those signed-in to Google.com and searching in English.
Google has introduced a prominent new toggle on the upper right of the results page where you can see what your search results look like without personal content. With a single click, you can see an unpersonalized view of search results.
Amit Singhal has concluded the blog post by saying:
We named our company after the mathematical number googol as an aspiration toward indexing the countless answers on webpages, but that’s only part of the picture. The other part is people, and that’s what Search plus Your World is all about.
After Google announced this ‘Search Plus’ feature the SEO blogosphere filled with post on how this will affect the search industry and what will be the possible pros and cons of this additional feature.
Danny Sullivan Of Search Engine Land wrote:
Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
A Blog Post On Mashable Said:
Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut
Matt Cutts wrote a blog post on his blog titled:
The major concern is that Google might favor only the Google+ social signals and hence try to influence the use of Google+ more that other social media platforms. But, this was clarified by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt who says Google+ content is not being favored over Twitter and Facebook by Google’s search engine. Rather, those companies can be treated the same if they grant Google the right permissions to access their content.
Danny Sullivan wrote about this on :
Schmidt: Google+ Not Favored, Happy To Talk Twitter & Facebook Integration
I think the blending of social results in search is not only the inevitable evolution of search but the reflection of what took place when civilizations evolved. We can just say that the stone age of search is over and now search even has the ability to reflect what people in your community are talking about and recommending. It is basic human nature to search for a want and then discuss with peers about their opinions and then take a decision. Since ages we have been doing this but now we have to just adapt ourselves to the virtual world for this kind of an action.
To a certain extent I believe that if Google wants to improve the quality of search results and combat the spam on the web then yes, it is highly essential that the search engine can access data from a resource it has full control on. But, from the search engine perspective only time will tell how well Google succeeds in integrating the social signals from other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter else with the kind of hold Google has over the search market it is going to be, Google Google all the way…
