posted by Search
In the past year, we’ve seen an interesting progression in the world of search. With the onset of the numerous Panda updates, we saw Google begin to take large bounding strides toward offering something more valuable, more useful for the user.
First they began to weed out content that was aggregated or unoriginal. After that, Google began going after sites that used link-building schemes to generate traffic. Once that was done, they began to look more at how a site was actually designed. Was it beneficial to the overall user experience? Were there too many ads? Was it truly a site worth going to? Then Google rolled out their “freshness index,” which showed that they began to understand which queries needed timely information to be relevant and which ones just needed to be good, solid results.
At the beginning of 2012, Google showed once more they weren’t about to pull any punches, but this time, they took things one step further. Users are a social group; it’s a fact. It’s for this reason that sites like Facebook and Twitter are so popular. It’s with this thought in mind that Google introduced “Search Plus Your World,” which rolls Google+ into search.
When I am logged into Google and do a search for “social media marketing” (pictured above), I begin to see results from people I’m connected with who have some relation to the world of social media. We see posts by people who write about social media marketing, complete with images and the ability to see more of what they have to offer. This is presently driven solely by Google+. Google is quite literally pushing their service on us in a way that lends an additional set of information, as well as the potential to ramp up visibility to anything you post or link to on any social media outlet.
By doing this, Google is making sure the primary focus of its search offering is the user. They are providing results from people you may have a connection with, along with the standard results from sites they have determined to be authoritative.
Google knows you’re more likely to trust a friend before you’ll trust a search engine. When a friend says “you should shop at that store down the road, I had a great experience there,” you are more likely to listen to them. They are a peer, someone you (hopefully) trust. Google understands this simple fact, so what better way is there to provide results that you will trust than actually filling it with information from people that you trust?
About the author::
Joshua Mathe leads thunder::tech’s Search team and his infatuation with
SEO and
PPC began six years ago. He is a lifelong Clevelander with a love of all things
#CLE. In the rare moments that he's not online, he’s spending time playing with his dogs, cooking, cheering for Cleveland sports and practicing kendo.
TAGS:
thundertech, search, SEO, engine, optimization, Google, social, Media, marketing, search plus your world, Google+, word of mouth
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