Well, it’s finally happened. Google web search has been Google-Plus-ified.
Today, Google is bringing some specific new features to Google web search, its flagship and most widely used product. In addition to the usual assortment of links, pictures, news items and shopping results you’d see in a typical Google search results page, logged-in Google+ users will now also find several kinds of Google+ content sprinkled in among the normal search results. There are even promoted Google+ profiles and pages — an attempt to compete with Facebook’s highly successful social ads.
We’ve been telling you this was coming for ages, so we hope you’re not too surprised. Eventually, Google+ will be part of everything Google does on the web and mobile.
Google: User security and privacy a top priority when building new search
Yesterday, VentureBeat spoke at length with Jack Menzel, Google’s web search product management director, about the newest changes.
“This isn’t the entire Internet, it’s your entire Internet,” he told us. “With Google+, we understand who people are, and we use that.”
This Google+-powered approach assumes certain ties between relevance and personal connections. Links shared by your G+ connections are given more weight and will show up in the first page of web search results with a person icon on the left.
You will also be able to see Google+ posts in search results based on keyword relevance. Basically, Google+ posts are seemingly indexed just like every other page on the web, but they’ll only show up in your search results if the poster is connected to you on Google+.
Photos posted to Google+ will show up in web and image search results — again, only to searchers who are connected to the original person who posted the photo in question.
Finally, you’ll also be able to search for specific people who have Google+ profiles using a Facebook-like people search tool.
The Google+ links, posts and pictures that will appear in your searches are from you, from your friends, and from persons of note (broadly speaking). Mostly, said Menzel, you’ll only see content from people you’re connected to.
For every piece of social content that shows up in a web search, you’ll be able to see who it’s from, with whom it’s shared and why it’s appearing. “Everything we show you, we label that very clearly and explain why that’s showing up,” said Menzel.
“Security, transparency and control are of paramount importance,” he said. “When we’re returning these personal results, it really is between you and Google … We’re using secure code.”
These social search integrations, which Google is calling “search plus your world,” can be toggled on and off by using the “person” and “world” icons in the top right corner of search results.
And of course, there are promoted Google+ accounts. On the right side of the results page, you’ll see featured profiles and pages, along with a link reading “Learn how you could appear here too.” We’re guessing this is paid placement setup to compete (eventually) with Facebook’s highly successful social ads; as such, it’s the most important part of today’s announcement.
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