Heard of Google Social Search?
If you haven’t, you most likely will soon. That is, unless you’re one of the few who doesn’t care about your Google search traffic.
If you don’t think social media has an impact on your search engine rankings, guess again. Google Social Search was an experiment released in late October. If you’re following it, you know that in the last day or two it’s been essentially shut-down.
Still, it’s naive to think it is not coming.
There has been speculation about this for some time, going back to Business Week’s mention of a patent filing in September of 2008. Jordan Kasteler and others have been postulating its implications over the past few months.
What does this all mean? Well, from my perspective, the Google Social Search Experiment, along with the sandbox-play Google Caffeine (the much discussed algorithm update) is the first iteration of a real organic social search engine in play.
If you aren’t familiar with either, just read the links in the above paragraph.
What’s This Mean To You?
Well, essentially it solidifies what many have been saying for a long time. If you’re not actively participating in the social media sphere, you’re going to be playing catch up.
Your potential customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections. Your past customers’ search results will be influenced by their social media connections.
Which don’t include you (but do include your competitors).
Ready to begin building and solidifying those relationships now? Or do you want to keep barking about your awesomeness and hot deals?
Some Questions I Have
I think it remains to be seen how this all shakes out. The implications for users, businesses, and marketers is huge. I don’t think this can be overstated.
Whatever happens, it’s going to be fascinating. Google social profile optimization? Businesses afforded Google profiles? Or will it simply pull from Google Local? How good will the algorithm be at sniffing out quality vs. quantity of connections?
The answers are forthcoming. It’s just a matter of “when”. Which is a good thing- we have lots of questions.
Tags: google social search