0Thursday, January 12, 2012
Google Integrates Social and Search
“Search plus Your World” is born
It’s no secret that the biggest advantage to establishing a brand page on Google+ is the SEO value in Google search results.
Following its initial launch, Google+ faced months of an interweb-wide roast marking it as the wimpy cousin to Facebook.
On Tuesday, Google introduced a new secret weapon that will allow its social media platform to stand out from the crowd and contribute directly to Google search results.
Now, as a Google pluser, you will be able to personalize your Google search results in a phenomenon called, Search plus Your World. Plusers can switch between these personalized search results and the traditional global results, or opt out of having the personalized results displayed at all.
Users must be signed into Google+ or Gmail for this feature to work.
So, now what?
Plusers can now search content that members of their Google+ circles post directly on their walls, or make public. The idea being that when searching a specific topic, Google will now provide a list of prominent people who are “experts” in that area. This expert status is based entirely off the content of their Google+ pages and how it relates to search words.
This new feature makes for a more intimate and social search experience, as well as securing Google +‘s position in the social search sphere. Oh, and this (@JonMwords is a blogger for ReadWriteWeb):
Naysayers
Search plus Your World won’t officially launch for a few more days, but it’s already receiving backlash from Twitter, who questions the relevancy of social search. Other sources comment on the effectiveness of a feature that users can permanently opt out of.
So, what does this mean for the future of SEO?
Google + brand pages are now more relevant than ever. Companies should make their profiles public, and put a lot of thought into including keywords in their posts.
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