The Globalization of Social Search

In 2009 we first introduced Social Search on google.com as an experimental feature designed to help you find more relevant information from your friends and the people you care about. Since then we’ve been making steady improvements to connect you with more people and more relevant web results. Today, we’re bringing Social Search to more users around the globe.

Just like on google.com, social search results in other languages and on other domains are mixed throughout the Google results page based on their relevance. For example, if you’re looking for information about low-light photography and your friend Marcin has written a blog post about it, that post may show up higher in your results with a clear annotation and picture of Marcin:

Social search results can rank anywhere on the page, and you’ll see who shared the result in the annotation underneath.

 


 
Social Search can help you find pages your friends have created, and it can also help you find links your contacts have shared on Twitter and other sites. If someone you’re connected to has publicly shared a link, we may show that link in your results with a clear annotation. So, if you’re looking for information about modern cooking and your colleague Adam shared a link about Modernist Cuisine, you’ll see an annotation and picture of Adam under the result. That way when you see Adam in the office, you’ll know he might be a good person to ask about his favorite modern cooking techniques.

Social Search includes links people share on Twitter and other services.

So how does this all work? Social search results are only visible to you and only appear when you choose to log in to your Google Account. If you’re signed in, Google makes a best guess about whose public content you may want to see in your results, including people from your Google chat buddy list, your Google Contacts, the people you’re following in Google Reader and Buzz, and the networks you’ve linked from your Google profile or Google Account. For public networks like Twitter, Google finds your friends and sees who they’re publicly connected to as well. You can see a complete list of the people included in your social search results in your personal Google Dashboard (this display is private). For an overview of Google Social Search, check out the explanatory video:

Social Search is rolling out globally in 19 languages and should be available in the coming week, with more languages on the way. People around the world will find similar types of social results as people in the U.S., and we plan to introduce the +1 feature as soon as we can. With these changes, we want to help you find the most relevant information from the people who matter to you.

The Mapping for Results Platform

The Mapping for Results Platform provides detailed information about our work to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development around the world. This pilot website aims to visualize the location of our projects and to provide access to information about indicators, sectors, funding and results.
Prior to the Spring Meetings 2011, Mapping for Results has identified more than 1250 active Bank financed activities working in 16,520 locations. These activities are a subset of more than 2,500 active financed Bank activities with a volume of more than $160 billion.

BrightLocal Survey- 59% of Consumers use Google Each Month to Find a Good Local Business

Brightlocal.com, a provider of local search tools for local marketers and SMBs, has released a new survey of Local SEO’s and US consumers title: Where do local business websites get their traffic & do consumers appreciate local search results? They surveyed 648 Local SEOs and 1,250 US consumers as to the value of Local search results.

Local SEOs reported that Google Places was the number one source of traffic and Google organic was number two, with Google in total providing 58% of all search traffic. (I have asked for clarification of the results but it strikes me as difficult to ascertain with any confidence where a result from Google is coming from with blended results.) All other sites provided a small percentage of the traffic; Yahoo providing 4% in from both local and organic, Bing providing 3% and Facebook 2%. These numbers reinforced the results that I reported in a much smaller sample of rural visitation in January.

The report found that consumers looked more closely at results that included images particularly in younger demographics. It is confirmation of the general perception in the SEO world of the benefits of the Google included visuals. Of particular interest to me, were the consumer usage and satisfaction results.

Question: How often do you use Google to locate and find a good local business? (e.g cafe, bar, plumber, taxi service…)
– 59% of consumers use Google each month to find a good local business
– 31% of consumers use Google each week to find a good local business

% of consumers using Google Local results

Question: In Google’s search results they often display local results*. Which of the following statements best applies to your attitude and use of these types of results?

Key Findings:
-71% of consumers value the information contained within local search results.
-This rises to 80% for those aged 16-34; Only 66% of consumers aged 55+ find these results useful

Related posts:

  1. How Often Does Google Show A Local Map? More than a 1 billion times per month!
  2. Google Maps User Survey
  3. Google Business Group Survey – Not from Google