Google seems to be on a rollout as it has been been launching steady updates to its search engine. It has been trying to make search results more user friendly at the same time giving more filtering options to its searchers.
We recently spotted social media info in Google search results embedded with special formatting. The results are visible only on Google US [View it here] site and are as such missing from regional search portals like Google India. Google seems to be experimenting in adding Facebook friends’ names and also Linkedin Bio info above Users profile link in search results.
This feature is great addition as it lets you easily identify your target Social profile by just looking at additional info given in search results. Thus avoiding the pain of visiting results page. For Google more users stickiness on search results for viewing additional info converts to higher CTR’s on Ads.
Notice the grey text info above search results
This search addition clearly states that Google wants bigger pie of social networking searches at the same time wants to provide more than just plain vanilla results to its users. It also needs to maintain a huge feature gap as wave of new service introduction are launched by Bing and other search competitors.
What more can Google add?
Google can add lot more info like Bio details for social networks like Twitter. It can also generate additional info like follower count, friends name for open networks like Twitter and Myspace. Google could very well add number of Diggs for digg links, video ratings in search results itself.
This revamping of search results is not limited to social networking sites alone. Google has also started to add review results for few products and softwares from reputed sites.
Google could provide great value addition for searches as many people are finding Google less effective in the wake of upsurge recorded in spam links for search results. Users are also complaining of severe deterioration of results in higher pages of searches.
This search addition is game changing for Google as more and more social networks approach open policy for profiles thus making it simple for Google to easily crawl useful info and provide better blend of results. In recent past many social networks has introduced new search features.Twitter even went to the extent of revamping its home page to emphasize more on searches. This feature could help it to counter surge of social searches on twitter, digg and plethora of similar services.
