When late last year we decided to focus on Google+ for the month of January, we couldn’t have imagined the shake-up Google had planned for incorporating Google+ into search with Google Search Plus Your World.

In fact we spoke with a Google representative the day before Google Search Plus Your world dropped and they didn’t breathe a word.

Is including your social graph in search results better? We spoke with three SEO experts about their take on Google Search Plus Your World.

Google+

Before we jump into a conversation about Google+’ impact on search – it’s useful to have an understanding of Google+ in the Australian market. Google+ recently announced it now has over 90 million users worldwide. Whilst it has not nearly caught up to Facebook, it’s growing at a far more rapid rate than Facebook ever did.

Demographics

Google does not release demographic data. According to measurement of traffic to Google+ by Experian Hitwise in January 2012, Google+ users are an almost even split of female (47.51%) and male (52.49%). Most users are in New South Wales (34%), with Queensland and Victoria equal at 20%, Western Australia at 16%, South Australia at 11% and ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory hardly represented.

Google Search Plus Your World

“Google+ is Google's attempt to integrate an aspect of social media into their search results, in an effort to keep its content fresh and more reflective of what people find interesting and useful on a day to day basis. It can be seen as a kind of voting system, with greater number of +1's for a website or article suggesting that users tend to find this content to be of value,” explains Alan Mitchell, Director of Search Marketing at Smart Inc.

A positive step?

When asked if he considered Google Search Plus Your World to be a positive advance, Jeff Yang, Digital and Search Marketing Director at E-web Marketing says, “Whether a marketer views the influence and inclusion of Google+ elements in Google Search rankings as positive or negative is now somewhat irrelevant. The fact is, Google+ has already been integrated into the search results (United States only at this stage) and Google have already stated and demonstrated their bias for ranking SOCIAL based results above those that are more conventionally 'relevant'.

“Like it or not, from a Google Search Plus Your World perspective, any brand/business that doesn't promote themselves on Google+ will soon be doomed to disappear from the search results.”

Google bias?

Andrew Hughes, SEO Director at Reprise Media sees Google Search Plus Your World as the next step in personalisation of search results. But there are reservations. “The negative side is that the diversity of the results seems to favour or be skewed towards Google properties – Facebook/Twitter and other brand- owned channels seem not to be as prominent as the Google properties.”

User experience

Google+ promotes the changes to search as improving user experience. Hughes disagrees, “Google will undoubtedly say yes to this, [that search is improved for the user] through their testing and sampling, however the QUALITY of the results is being affected. I don’t always want to be presented with the results that Google deems my social influence circle dictates.”

Mitchell sees that there could be positives, “You could argue that Google+ benefits the user experience, by providing up to date, engaging, and informative results based on what other people like. Showing the names of friends and colleagues who have also +1'd a website adds further value to Google+. This integration of friends' preferences into content is something which has worked well for Facebook apps such as The Guardian (which shows news articles that your friends have recently read), and could incite conversation among friends via the Google+ platform.”

Risks

However Mitchell also sees a downside. “+1 is arguably somewhat open to abuse, so in the short-term Google are likely to place relatively minimal weighting on +1 counts for SEO rankings. As they collect more +1 data and gain a better understanding of how +1 counts can help to provide more relevant, current, and engaging search results, we are likely to see Google+ playing a more important role in Google's search results in the future.”

Brands

Yang sees the changes as an opportunity for brands. “Imagine having the ability to obtain endorsement for your brand/business from people your customers already know! Also, consider the rich experience these personal endorsements in organic search results will give users.”

Approach to SEO

In light of a significantly new way of weighting search results, each expert will, if only slightly, adjust their approach. Yang explains, “Right now, great SEO is compliant by what's called ON-PAGE factors such as page titles, site speed, file structure, url structure, sitemaps, etc… and off page factors such as back links, link graphs, link profiles, etc… Problem is, both can be very easily manipulated by an unethical SEO expert meaning the top results aren't always the most relevant.

“Changes to my SEO strategy for both the short and long term would be to focus more on generating various forms of engaging/useful content (videos, images, audio, and text) and have this fresh content uploaded to my website consistently and then syndicated to multiple social networks with social backlinks such as Google+ and bookmarking sites to encourage social sharing.”

Future

Considering the strength of Google properties including Google docs, YouTube and Gmail, the potential for Google to tailor search results is huge. Considering the move towards social weightings, great, shareable content is more important than ever.