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Search Marketing Turns Social

Search engine marketing just officially became social engine marketing. Feeling left out of the social media revolution, Google is baking "friends'' activity on Twitter, Flickr, and other platforms (other than Facebook) into the top search results users see. In some cases, "The social search element will change a page's ranking -- making it appear higher than 'normal,'" reports Search Engine Land. "The ranking impact will be different based on how strong your connections are, and different people will see different results."

"This ... is personalization taken to another level," remarks ReadWriteWeb. "This is personalization in the form of looking at who you know, who you're connected to on various social networks, and ranking content according to who created it and who shared it. What's more, Google is planning to go a step further and look at content shared by friends of friends.

Prior to this week's announcement, Social Search results -- which Google introduced in October 2009 -- only appeared at the bottom of a search results page, or after clicking the "Social" filter in the left-side column, according to McGee. "Now, you might see them mixed anywhere in the search results." "For the first time, social is actually going to affect Google Search in a meaningful way," writes TechCrunch.

Regarding Facebook -- which one could argue is the very definition of social media -- Google said bringing its data into the search fold is a possibility. For now, however, "We're focused on sites where it's relatively easy to crawl for data," Mike Cassidy, Google's Product Management Director of Search, told members of the media on Wednesday.

Read the whole story at Search Engine Land »

1 comment about "Search Marketing Turns Social".
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  1. Bruce May from Bizperity, February 17, 2011 at 2:15 p.m.

    I don't want to just see only what my friends see when I search. I want to see everything. If they don't give us the option to "see all" then we are going down a dark road that could have some very ugly consequences. Regardless of whether I prefer FOX News or MSNBC, I want to be able to see them both (sorry for jumping mediums but the point is the same). Without that capability we will end up creating alternative views of reality that don’t even know the other views exist. Look a the divisions in the country today and imagine them magnified ten times by a lack of communication between demographic groups that split across the political spectrum. On top of that, the “creative class” can end up isolated and disconnected from the real problems and challenges of the rest of the world (we are probably half way there now). If Google controls our access to knowledge and information based on our social graph they are exercising power over my world view far beyond what I want them to have. I control my own social graph in Facebook by choosing who I invite as friends but I don’t want those choices to control or limit the parameters of my searches when I am seeking knowledge and information about the world. Give me the opition to see the world through my friends eyes, fine, but don't force it on me. Google is overreaching and if they pursue this kind of social strategy they are likely to find themselves dealing with the same kinds of privacy controversies that have plagued Facebook. You have to wonder if they have really thought this through. Maybe they still need a little adult supervision.

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