Google recently announced another feature they have included in searches they dub “Search Plus Your World”, whose rollout began today. It’s a new idea that brings public and private search results together into one mixed set, giving a diverse set of results tailored only to you. Not everyone will see the change yet as it is still rolling out, and is currently only for those searching in English and are signed in to Google.com.
One of the first concerns of this new feature is privacy. Private content may be shown in the results which may make it appear as public, even though it isn’t and this may inadvertently share more than was intended. I would personally argue that anything private should never be put on the internet, but other less knowledgeable users may not be under the same pretence.
So what can we expect from this?
First off there is a new view called “Personal Results” which displays only your personalised results based on social connections and behaviour. This includes shared posts and content from your Google+ account. In the search results you need to select the personalised results button, shown below, to get these personalised results. If you don’t have the button yet, don’t worry, Google are rolling it out over the coming days. If you want to try and get it early you can try following the instructions here, as I did on http://goo.gl/R1cVy and then (and this is important as it only works this way) visit Google.com (not .co.uk, etc) making sure you’re signed in and are viewing in English.
As an example, I performed a search for “SEO”. Next to the buttons, you can see that Google has found 10 personal matches, and 1 billion regular search matches for the search term.
Some of the personalised results are blended into the SERPs as shown below.
What personalised content will we actually see?
Google says you’ll see content from yourself, and “content that is shared with you by suggested connections that have Google+ profiles. If you have Google+, your personal results can also include content that has been shared with you by people in your circles”.
In summary, personalised results will include:
Regular organic listings
Listings boosted by your personal behaviour
Listings boosted by social connections
Public Google+ content, including photos
Private Google+ content that has been shared with you
The final personalisation is a very big change and may cause concerns for some searchers, but I’ll go into this a little later.
I wanted to see what personalised items I could bring up for myself, so I shared an article about Crystal LED Displays to just a small group of people in one of my circles. I then searched for “Crystal LED Display”. Because I made this private, it shows up as “Limited” in the post yet it still shows up in the SERPs when I search for it. This could cause concern for someone who has posted something private and they think its public. This is made clear by the use of “Limited” and “Public” next to the post in the SERPs.
There are many ways this kind of search can be useful. If you post something on your Google+ account but later can’t find it, you can conduct a search and it will appear in the SERPs, allowing you to be reunited with said content. Google wouldn’t have found these items previously in a regular search, but providing this directly in Google.com opens a new era in social search.
If you want to see just personalised results, you can do this by clicking the link shown in red below. Clicking “See all results” brings back the regular mixed search.
Searching for people
You’ll no doubt be aware of Facebook search. When you type in something to search for, it includes apps, pages, people and more. Google have now integrated a similar looking system for searching for people within Google search.
Below I’ve searched for “Matt”. Now I could have been talking about anyone called Matt but I only have one Matt on my Google+ profile, and that is Matt Cutts.
Selecting the result for Matt Cutts, the results now change to be personalised completely around him. This includes his Google+ posts, his personal website and other sites he has been mentioned on. However you’ll only see public content, or private content shared with you. You won’t see anything you’re not supposed to.
Back to privacy
Going back to concerns over privacy, some may be reluctant to share anything on Google+ anymore because of the new ability to search for it. It doesn’t bother me personally as I’m aware that Google will not show this content to others, but for other people who are not familiar with how it works, they may get concerned.
Personalised results are personalised only to you, they’re never made public. The content is only shown to you unless shared with other people, in which case they may also see it in their personalised search too. My only concern is if someone then takes that content and makes it public on their Google+ account. This will then begin showing up in public searches as well and that deeply concerns me. However, as with all things on the internet, if it’s private it’s best not to post it anywhere on the web otherwise there is always that fear it will get loose.
It could get you into some serious trouble
I sit here asking myself what other problems open content and these searches may lead to. Consider this: You accidentally post something that is slightly out of context and it is made public. Little mistakes keep being made and this leads up to something bigger. One day someone gets overly concerned and conducts a search on these things and your name keeps popping up. That has the potential to get you into serious trouble especially if it’s based around your place of work or family.
Another example is something you posted, but forgot and want to continue having forgotten. One day someone searches and this pops up and they decide to share it. It gets brought back to life and suddenly you’re aware of it again.
These things may sound small but they can amount to a whole lot of trouble.
So despite some concerns, this new way of searching is a good thing?
Definitely! It can change the way we search for content we really want to look at. This is something Google has wanted to perfect for a long time and this is one extra way to get us there. Weeding out irrelevant content is also good for us because it saves time. There’s nothing worse than searching for something and not getting the right information quickly. I’ve frequently found myself searching dozens of SERPs just trying to find what I need. Now, if someone I know has posted content on the same subject, I’ll be able to find it and that content is likely to be more relevant than a generic search.
It will take some time for us all to see the benefits, but after a week or two using the personalised search I can see it having a big impact on the content we look at.
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