Google is taking its biggest step yet toward making search results more social.
Though Google remains many people’s front door to the Web, people have increasingly been turning to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to search for shopping tips, what to read or travel information from people they know. Google said Thursday that its search results would now incorporate much more of that information.
“Relevance isn’t just about pages — it’s also about relationships,” Mike Cassidy, a Google product management director, and Matthew Kulick, a product manager, wrote in a company blog post announcing the new features.
Google has had a version of social search since 2009. People could link their Google profiles to LinkedIn and Twitter, for instance, and posts their friends had created would show up at the bottom of search results. But only a small percentage of people did this, and the chances that one of your LinkedIn contacts has written a blog post on a city you’re planning to visit is relatively slim.
Now, links to posts from friends across the Web, including on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, will be incorporated into search results, not hidden at the bottom of the page, with a note and a picture telling you the post is from your friend. So if you are thinking about traveling to a beach in Mexico that a friend has visited, a link to her blog could be a top result.
Google will also let you know if a friend of yours has shared a particular link on the Web. This is a big change, because before, Google would only highlight material that acquaintances actually created.
You might be more likely to read an essay on a topic related to your job if a professional contact on Twitter shared it, for instance. That is a point that many Web publishers, including The Huffington Post and Forbes.com, have taken to heart.
Finally, Google users will be able to privately link their social networking accounts to their Google profiles. Before, those connections were made public, which might have discouraged some users. People will see social results only if they are logged in to their Google accounts and have connected their social networking accounts.
Notably, there is no mention of Facebook in Google’s announcement, through the company blog post says social results will appear only “if someone you’re connected to has publicly shared a link.” Facebook posts are generally private, and Facebook has made it difficult for Google to import social information, as several Google executives have complained in the past.