There have been some major adjustments to Google’s Social Search, that originally began in 2009. As part of this change, search results will now incorporate information pulled from Twitter, Flickr, and Quora. With three new prominent features, search and social have an even deeper relationship than ever before.
The first, and most likely seen by users, is how social search will now appear blended within the results. Previously, these lived at the bottom of the search results, practically hidden to all users. Now with this new feature, users will find results based on whether their friends ‘shared’ a link or wrote a blog about a related topic.
Second is the integration of three new social channels: Twitter, Flickr and Quora. Just as social search appears blended with blogs and shared links, now users will see results from these sites as well – such as Tweets with related links or topics.
What some users may enjoy the most is the third improvement: user control. Now with social search, users can decide what content they want shared within the results. Depending on public or private information, as well as linking user profiles with Google accounts, users now have the ability to cross-reference their friend lists from Google Talk or Google Buzz with these social sites.
Although social search does not pull in Facebook “Likes” as part of user data, it does hold a lot more weight across many other social channels. While Google continues to advance their newest feature, social media and search begin weaving an even tighter web.
