Important update from the Googleplex today with news that searches will now feature more from a user’s friends on social media sites and integration within the main results page.
Introduced in October 2009, Google started featuring results from a user’s contacts (as long as they were logged in to their Google account) for relevant searches.
Such results came from people being followed on Twitter, sources on RSS feeds and the like.
Until now the results were buried at the bottom of the page of accessed via the “social” button in the left-hand navigation bar.
In today’s upgrade Google has decided to throw social results into the main results page and dramatically widened the number of sources streaming in – meaning that any content from a contact’s activity (such as sharing) or contributions to Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Quora, blogs, news sites will stream in.
Google, with its new-found love of all things travel, uses a trip search query to explain a little bit more how it works in this clip:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hAgiIXuNbs
What does it all mean?
Whereas previously the social results were tucked away at the foot of the page, content (be it video, images, blogs, news, etc) from those in a user’s social graph will now stand shoulder-to-shoulder alongside results from the wider web.
It is unclear exactly how the order of results will be calculated.
But those hovering around the lower fringes of page one, for example, may well soon find themselves relegated to the dungeon of page two on Google, not because they have lost relevancy in their own right but due to a user simply being logged in with a Google account and seeing results from their friends.
So an obscure blog post about a location by a friend – or, indeed, something they simply retweeted – could quite feasibly trump the well-oiled SEO of an established travel company.
That is a big deal.
Furthermore, Google is making it easier for users to find people within their social graph as well as automatically suggesting if a user wishes to connect their profile on another social network into the graph.
Where the Social Search falls short, in some respects, is its lack of integration with the omnipresent Facebook, meaning that people’s “likes” are not featured in the search results.
Related posts:
About Kevin May
One implication: Be very careful about who you follow on Twitter. If you’re following anyone for the pure car-crash entertainment value of their idiotic opinions, *they will be screwing with your search results*. Unintended, but karmic vengeance.
Interesting, and very good point raised by DonaldS above, though overall it strikes me as trying to fix a broken travel search with a social bandaid.
If I want a recommendation from Twitterfolk on a place to stay in Paris, I’ll ask on Twitter, likewise for FB. Only if those two wells are dry would I turn to Google.
You can’t mimic relationship and trust with an algorithm.
Kevin: Social search or not, try a Google search for NYC hotels. You have to scroll down the screen to get an organic result. The first screen is filled with sponsored ads and Google Maps results.
So much for unbiased search:)
Ridiculous. Piling more and more crap on top of the existing farce of Google Maps being shoved to the top whether you’re interested or not. What makes Google think that my contacts on Twitter etc have anything useful to contribute to my searches? Google is losing the plot.
Phil
But I assume Facebook will eventually reach a data-access deal of this sort with Google. And on that day, content creators with highly-liked fanpages will be rising to the top of the social search pile too.
Really interesting, actually. What you’re seeing is a convergence of search, social media monitoring tools, and the social connection feature.
Kevin is right – ignore what you think of Google’s actual design now – embedding the capabilities of SMM tools to pull in the stream of social content about specific topics – or search terms – it could be a big deal.
Imagine if you could not only see the social content (including reviews) relevant to your search on destinations, hotels, etc, but also be able to click through to the full stream of “Listening” content on a whole new page. Google (and Bing) might then have an entirely new advertising platform for trending topics and specific content.
So anyone searching Justin Bieber, for example, could click through to all the social content flowing about him, and Island Records could actually advertise on that page to promote his records, tour tickets, merchandise, or anything.
Of course, you might regret seeing what teenagers today will post about Justin Bieber. Hotels might be a little more tame…
Perhaps an obvious observation but it seems this move could be directly in response to the “clear & present danger” google perceives in FB. I am (not the only one) surprised that they want to take their primary search results in this direction. I personally use the google search for quite different reasons than a “search” within my social network (especially for something like travel). I actually wouldn’t and don’t want these “mashed” results polluting my screen. It would prompt me to sign out! probably not the reaction they want.
My bet is this doesn’t last long and morphs in a very different way. I also don’t use my google account for social networking (like some others I assume) and thus this chance has little relevance for me…
As with others, I’m struggling to see the point of this. More social results in a search? Fantastic, it gives brand’s social media strategies a chance to bloom and will throw up some ‘interesting’ results.
I also agree that it seems like another case of oneupmanship between Google and Facebook, though at the moment, I think Facebook might be winning.
It’s a pity for google that they are leaving out the FB results. Well probably that is FB’s doing rather than google’s since I vaguely remember some statement by Zuckenberg wherein he states that he intends to replace google with social search or something like this.
The feature of adding social search is great, a reassuring one for people searching for stuff and knowing that X friend liked it, or that Y friend liked it (and one can’t stand Y anyways so we’ll not click there).
Well let’s see how this pans out. Maybe Zuckenberg was right, social search will replace machine search one day.
I doubt Facebook would ever give Google access to the “like” data.
Facebook already has everything they need to build a major search engine. Instead of calculating “votes” for a website based on links and PageRank, Facebook has actual votes in the form of “like” buttons. With all the Facebook integration out there, Facebook also has the ability to track people as they navigate across the Web, in the same way Google does with Google Analytics.
I think there is a good chance that, within a couple of years, Facebook will be directly competing with Google Search.