Announced earlier today, Google brings Your World to their Search. That’s assuming you’ve started to build a version of your world on Google Plus. Now, when you’re logged into your Google Plus account and searching on google.com you have an option to search the public web (as you are currently familiar with it) or to click on the personal icon and see results from people you are connected with – turning google.com from a search engine that understands content to one that also values people and your relationships.
Search, plus Your World will feature the following:
- More personal results based on information you have either shared with your circles or information shared from your circles specifically with you.
- Profiles will come up in search results from those close to you or whom Google thinks you might be interested in based on your search.
- Google Plus pages sharing related information, those you are already connected to or that might be of interest to you.
Why is this important to your business? If this takes off and people stay logged into their Google Plus accounts –favoring personal search– then your hard-earned SEO efforts become less important. If it’s about a social connection you need to be where your audience is to get noticed, and you need to be shareable. This creates a huge incentive for businesses to create Google Plus pages, and also to integrate the +1 button across their websites, encouraging an audience to share.
This is no small concern, at the time of writing this post Twitter came out with an official statement calling this “A bad day for the internet”. Jason Kincaid puts the debate into context in his post ‘Twitter Really, Really Hates Google’s New Google+ Integration’ on TechCrunch. It’s natural to assume Twitter fears that people and publishers will begin to share breaking news on Google Plus before Twitter so they remain relevant to Google search results.
This is a bold statement from Twitter but I expect more will follow. I wouldn’t suggest brands jump right in, Google has produced many (failed) social products and concepts. I think they may pull back if backlash is heavy, but it’s a sign of things to come and that the +1 button will become more and more relevant in the near future.
What are your thoughts? Will this encourage you to share more on your Google Plus account – or get your business/brand on there?
Learn more about getting Google Plus with this detailed guide from Mashable.
Honestly Twitter doesn’t have a lot to complain about. I’m not sure why Google decided to axe their original social search feature that essentially put Twitter content at the top of the list and results, but they had their moment in the spotlight. While I don’t exactly agree that placing connection based results above the fold in the search results, it does play on the idea and statistics we keep seeing on how people trust people, not brands. SEO can be boosted, sometimes to ridiculous levels, maybe this just levels the playing field a bit.
The whole change of main focus being on SEO towards the specific network on Google+1 is a HUGE event but like you said this is still in a way a new tool I ask so many people for Google +1 and they feel just lost, really lost, until we moved from that stage I’ll be able to see what future it holds for everyone.
Personally I’m giving it a try, I’m just still not used to have that tab open as I do with Twitter & Facebook… for the companies I work for, just created accounts but no niche worked yet.
Interesting thought on leveling the playing field, Elliot. As far as Google’s original social search feature I imagine they were testing it out with Twitter while they built a better audience of their own, to see how people reacted to it at all.
JC, I like to think back to when people left MySpace for Facebook…did the masses leave because Facebook then had better features, or did they leave because so many of their friends did — because what’s the value to a social network without friends? There’s always complaints on how confusing Facebook is with privacy, so Google fixes privacy and everyone complains about circles. People don’t like change, but it’s inevitable!