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So. Google integrated some Google+ support to their searches. What this means is that when I, say, search SOPA, I can see some Google+ pages about SOPA and attempts to stop it. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.
Let’s say I type in Mass Effect 3. I can now see posts my Google+ friends made about Mass Effect 3. That’s also pretty cool.
However, not everyone is happy about these changes.
Danny Sullivan of Searchengingeland.com recently wrote up an article explaining why the new Google+ integration is bad. He gives the example of searching for Britney Spears and mentions how it promotes her Google+ page before anything else, specifically her Twitter and Facebook pages. Okay. Let’s see this in action then.
I’m going to sign out of my Google account and do a search using Firefox.
So. Yes. Technically it lists her Google+ page. In the search bar. Personally, my eyes have been trained to ignore anything that fills up on the auto-fill bar and to just automatically skim the results, which, in order, lists relevant news within the past hour, her official page, her Wikipedia page, her Twitter, and her image results. Of note is that her Facebook page doesn’t show up until the second set of results, after her…MySpace page. Apparently people still use MySpace.
For the record, if I sign into Google, I get the exact same page. Nothing from Google+ slammed down my throat. Imagine that.
Now, one of the writers for tech blog Gizmodo has gone on record saying that he now uses Bing over Google. So why don’t we do a search on Bing for Ms. Spears.
We see lots of images first, then a news story from twenty hours ago, her official page, her Wikipedia page, and then some videos. Her Twitter is near the bottom of page one. Her Facebook page? It’s at the bottom of page four:
Now, why could this be? Let me ask you something. How many times did you Google someone’s Facebook page when you can just, you know, search for it directly on Facebook?
I get what Sullivan is saying about how Googling certain images can lead you to, say, not find the picture of Britney and Snoop Dog that I saw posted on my Facebook wall dozens of times or someone’s private Flickr photo. Yet, if someone’s Flickr photo is private, I shouldn’t be able to access it anyway. Not only that, but Facebook has its own search bar. See?
With no problem, I found this image:
For the record, I found this doing a Google image search:
Sullivan goes on to give a second example, this time dealing with cars. Here is the results from Google:
I can check out Ferrari’s or BMW’s Google+ pages if I wan’t, but I don’t have to and it’s occupying what used to be blank space and doesn’t get in the way of my actual search results.
Here’s what I get from Bing:
Wait. Why is Bing telling me what my Facebook friends like. Weren’t we just yelling at Google for integrating a social media network, that just happens to be theirs, into our searches? And just how long ago did these people like those videos? One of the videos is from ten months ago. That’s completely irrelevant.
Look, what Google is doing with the Google+ integration is, I think anyway, a fantastic idea. I can see relevant posts from my friends about certain topics. I can further stay connected to certain companies or personalities. It’s a wonderful marketing tool that I hope continues to get used. Plus, come on, that used to be a blank space. Now it’s filled with maps, their Google+ pages, which, sure, isn’t as popular as, say, Facebook, but with some of the integration features it has some serious potential. Instead of looking this as a negative, we should be looking at this as a positive and think of the possibilities.
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