Well it’s about time…finally a smart personalized search option thanks to Google.
Hitwise reported that Facebook outranked Google as the most visited US website for the week ending March 13, 2010. (Let’s not get too deep into this statistic, since a lot of variables are unknown). One thing is not debatable. Web users are interested in what their family members, co-workers, and friends are saying online and are seeking a more personalized web experience. That is what Google hopes to offer with the launch of Social Search.
What is Google Social Search?
People post a lot of information online and make it publicly available. These include blog posts, Tweets, pictures, etc. With Google Social Search, when you perform a keyword search the results will show what your friends, family, and anyone else you designate have posted on certain sites regarding that topic. For example, if you search “universal healthcare coverage,” you’ll see what your contacts are posting via images, videos, Tweets, RSS feeds, and blogs. This information appears towards the bottom of the page after the regularly indexed sites. According to Matt Cutts, these results only appear when the Google algorithm determines it will improve your search experience. So, with one search you can see what information is available on the wider web and among your social circle.
How do You Sign up for Google Social Search?
To get started, you’ll need a Gmail account. Contacts added to your Gmail chat list or in your Friends, Family, and Coworkers contacts automatically become part of your social circle. If you have a Google Talk account, that chat list is also thrown in the mix. Anyone you follow or subscribe to on certain social sites also become part of your circle. As contacts are added, the circle will expand by association (friends of friends, followers of followers on Twitter, etc.). From there, all you need to do is login to Google and search. Results will appear towards the bottom of the page. (It can take a few weeks before a contact’s content appears in your results).
Social Search and SEO
Become part of someone’s social circle and your blog posts, images, and Tweets will appear in their search results. I’m sure you can see the possibilities there. As mentioned above, to get started, sign up for a Gmail account, create a Google Profile and then add your social media links. If you haven’t already, sign up at social sites like Twitter, Flickr, and FriendFeed and then add those links to your profile.
When someone in your social circle performs a search, Google pulls publicly available content from your Profile links (blogs, Flickr, Twitter, etc.) and that is what appears in the search results for your contacts. So, it’s very important to include those links in your profile and to regularly post quality and optimized content. From there you want to build contacts and increase social subscribers/followers. Get creative with your email newsletters too, since Gmail is part of the social circle.
Of course there will be tweaks and technical issues while Social Search is perfected, but you have an opportunity to get a jump on the competition by building your profile and connections. Check it out today! You can read more about it in Google’s article about
Social Search.
Chris says
Going to be interesting how this works and works out. I did a check with my friends and so many of them don’t want to combine any form of advertising or promotion with the social side -to the point where they only want Facebook to be social and not really interested in facebook pages either!