Today I noticed Google introducing results from my “social circle” into my organic search results. This is a big move towards personalized search from Google – which WILL affect the SEO world in the next couple years. This puts importance on social connections and content outposts.
Here you see “Results from people in your social circle”
When you click through you get an interesting result…
Filtered search results from your social circle!
What makes up your social circle?
If you have a Google Profile – then Google knows about your social outposts. It uses these outposts – like Twitter, FriendFeed, Google Reader, and others – to create your social graph and filter organic results by what your friends have blogged, shared, and linked to.
How does this change SEO? If it isn’t obvious – this move is away from traditional ranking by keywords and authority and into ranking by social proof. This means your content outposts and social connections will become increasingly important.
The future of SEO is changing. We’re moving towards a social proof model where your social graph will help determine the relevancy of results. SEO tactics will move away from keyword targeting towards building an expansive social graph. The standard SEO practice of link building will change – shared links will carry more weight than inbound links.
SEO is changing – are you ready? Traditional SEO tactics will remain unchanged and will still be important. Adding social into personalized results will just add another facet to our internet marketing strategies.
Do you have questions about Google social / personalized search? Let us know in the comments or jump into the forums!
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