Social Search SERPS

... any websites associated with your profile, when you are logged into that profile, your SERPs may be affected by this new change. Google opted everyone in by default, so theres no way to turn it off (other than by signing out or using anonymous browsing). Google has decided to ignore the &pws=0 parameter flag that they ignore for personalized search, a decision I really hope they consider changing.

Google is looking at the profiles associated with you and crawling who you are friends or associated with. Google uses that information combined with XFN tagging to decide what other results to show with your results. IMHO this is what the caffeine update is really all about. Its about associating social information and real time social activity with your searches and incorporating this information to hopefully produce a better result.

To show you how different the results can be, here are three different sample keywords from two different people:

-Michael Gray-

-Las Vegas-

-las Vegas Hotels-

Depending on how much overlap there is between your social graph (ie the people you friend on social websites) you may have similar or completely different results. Its highly unlikely that two people will have identical results, unless they work at the same company and have similar social graph (an unintended consequence that will flummox search agencies to be sure).

Ive said this many times in the past: Google considers personalized search part of their POD, and its a strategic goal for them from the top down. Like it or no,t its something youre going to have to come to terms with. People are getting different personalized results and now they have the possibility of getting two additional personalized results based upon what their friends are doing/saying online.

In my opinion if you arent involved in social media at this point you are putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. Youre missing out on the opportunity to get yourself a SERP listing at the lower part of the page. To be honest I havent seen enough searches to know whether, if you have an organic listing above, you might be locked out of a second listing below. However if you get a lot of social engagements that get talked about, shared, or retweeted by other people, that will definitely show up, giving you a second slot.

If youve been sitting on the fence waiting to get involved in social media now is the time. However this sword has a double edged aspect. To get the most out of your efforts youll need to get involved and stay involved. Making a few half-hearted attempts isnt going to bring you any results. Getting involved in social media may not be easy, but neither is balancing one one leg when youre 8 months pregnant while performing wudang double sword maneuvers. But both can be done if you make it a priority and commit to making it work for you.

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Tag: Google Social Search, SERPS

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