Google’s updated social search results

Google’s search results will now show more content about what friends of users have linked to or mentioned on social media sites, the company has said.

The announcement, issued on the Google Blog, marks the latest phase of the search giant’s social search experiment which began in October 2009, and the latest development has broadened social search from solely including material that has been created by contacts.

The social search results, which are only available when a user logs into their Google account, are also incorporated into the main organic listings as opposed to being displayed in a box at the bottom of a search results page as they were previously, making it easier to ”find the most relevant information possible, personalised to your interests and the people you care about”, according to the announcement.

This latest social search initiative also allows users to link various personal social media accounts either publicly on their Google profile or privately in their Google Account.

While no firm conclusions can be made about potential consequences from Google’s latest move on SEO, it may be safe to assume that SEO agencies will have to pay closer attention to social graph networks: i.e. the diagrams that show the interconnections between groups and individuals on social networks.