New Google Social Search Feature
I began to see some interesting changes in my Google search returns after signing up for Google+. It's well known that many kinds of activities can affect my search engine results. But what I noted here was pretty dramatic.
When I was logged into Google+ my results completely changed. In addition, those that never signed up for Google+ had different results from those that did. Since my company does SEO work as part of our client services, it is important for us to continually monitor organic page rankings. As you can imagine, this has created some very interesting client conversations!
So now with Google's new announcement about social search, I understand what they were working on. Their plan must be official because it now has a name - “Search plus Your World”.
What is “Search plus Your World”?
Google calls this latest search feature "the access to your web". It now means your search results can be a combination of information that you posted in Google+ (and other Google services) along with its traditional search results.
Jack Menzel, product management director of Google search, explained that Google+ members can now "search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.”
Google’s 'Search plus Your World' is automatically active only if you are logged into Google+ and using https://www.google.com. They have also added a little toggle button that lets you hide the personal results and offer just good old authoritative search. (See below) The default is turned on.
The Constant Quest for Search Relevance (Personal vs. Social)
Search engines continually refine their methods, trying to understand how to return the best, most relevant online content. One goal is to get as close as possible to a human evaluation. The theory is adding Social Search offers an analog to what I call a human search cluster. I consider that cluster one of the benefits of a social network like Twitter. So it's a logical step in Google's quest for personal search relevance.
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