On Tuesday, Google announced something called Search, plus Your World (SPYW). It marked a startling transformation of the company’s flagship product, Google Search, into an amplifier of social content. Google’s critics — as well as some folks generally well-intentioned towards Google — have complained that the social content it amplifies is primarily Google’s own product, Google+.
via Is Too Much Plus a Minus for Google? | Epicenter | Wired.com.
But if that’s how the world of Google works now, that means it’s very important that you tend your Google+ pages, so that you rank well in Google search. Google has pretty much gamed its own search engine to insure Google+ will succeed.
This is what happens when you tell your entire staff that your salary depends on winning in social.
Now, this presents us all a conundrum. If a large percentage of people are logged into Google and/or Google+ when they are searching for stuff, that means Google+ pages are going to rank well for those people. Hence, I really have no choice but to play Google’s game, and tend to my Google+ page, be I a brand, a person, a small business…. are you getting the picture here? If you decide to NOT play on Google+, you will, in essence, be devalued in Google search, at least for the percentage of people who are logged in whilst using Google.
I dunno. This strikes me as wrong. I’ve spent nearly ten years building this site, Searchblog, and it has tens of thousands of inbound links, six thousand posts, nearly 30,000 comments, etc., etc. But if you are logged into Google+ and search for me, you’re going to get my Google+ profile first.
Seems a bit off. Seems like Google is taking the first click away from me and directing it to a Google service.
Now, if I decide to protest this, and delete my Google+ account, I better pray no one else named John Battelle creates a Google+ account, or they will rank ahead of me. And while Battelle is a pretty unique name, there are actually quite a few of us out there. Imagine if my name was John Kelly? Or Joe Smith?
Yikes. Quite a conundrum.
Google unveiled Google+ brand pages in November, enabling businesses and brands to join its social network. Since then, big brands — including Pepsi, Macy’s and Toyota — have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, creating yet another hub page for their content-hungry fans.
We reached out to our community to better understand how (and if) small businesses are using Google+. We received more than 50 responses detailing the merits and downfalls of using Google’s social network as a small business.
Below are some of the top thoughts on the pros and cons of using Google+ as a small business. Read on and add your thoughts in the comments below.
Google is poised to completely alter how websites market themselves over the next year. While easing users into changing search results pages, Google has also designed a new method for websites to structure data so that its crawler can better pull information. This is a tremendous strategy. Google doesn’t need to own all of the information in the world, but does own the methods of accessing that information — as well as the ability to advertise to people who use that access.
via Google Will Change Web Marketing in 2012 – Brian Whalley – Harvard Business Review.
Users of Google News will soon be able to find their favorite journalists on Google+ more easily. That’s because Google will soon begin to integrate the Google+ profiles of journalists with their bylines on Google News.
Journalists who have a lead story will get their Google+ profile picture prominently featured to the right of their story, along with a count of how many people circle that person. Most importantly, Google+ users will be able to add that person to their circle directly from Google News.
via Google To Integrate Journalists’ Google+ Profiles Into Google News – 10,000 Words.
Google is making plans to turn its +1 button into a crowdsourcing tool that helps it re-order search results and fight web spam.
While not surprising, the move would bring Google’s search engine into the social networking era, while simultaneously creating a new avenue for blackhats to manipulate search results and potentially incurring the wrath of trust-busting authorities.
via Google Explores Re-Ranking Search Results Using +1 Button Data | Epicenter | Wired.com.
As Google rolls out its Google+ social network, it is struggling with the same questions about identity that have caused problems for Facebook in the past: namely, how much should it force people to use their “real” names? The web giant has been disabling user accounts on Google+ for a variety of reasons over the past few weeks, but it has caused an outcry from many who feel it is being too strict in some cases and not enough in others. The big issue at the root of this battle, as we have pointed out before, is that in many cases anonymity (and pseudonymity) has real value. Are we losing that as a result of Google and Facebook’s real-name obsession?
via Google+ and the loss of online anonymity — Tech News and Analysis.
Want to rank better on Google? Get people to add you to their Google+ Circles, and that seems to be a potentially huge boost, based on a search I just did.
via How Being “Friends” On Google+ Leads To Better Rankings.
This is gonna be wild …
Social networks have proved to be incredible distribution platforms for real-time news and continue to fascinate journalists as communication tools. It’s no surprise that many media professionals have jumped quickly on the Google+ band wagon to explore its potential for journalism.
A Tibetan advocacy group recently held the world’s first video press conference via Google+ Hangouts. While the goal might have been to get attention from techies and journalists, it also gave us a glimpse into the future of video conferencing.
A Tibetan advocacy group held what appeared to be the world’s first Google+-powered video press conference this past Friday. The London-based International Tibet Network used Google Plus/Google+ (has the branding truly been figured out yet?) for a coordinated event featuring speakers in India, the United States, and the United Kingdom, held via Google+ Hangouts. Select journalists were allowed to join the press conference online and video was quickly rebroadcast via both Twitter and YouTube.
via How To Hold A Press Conference Via Google+ | Fast Company.