Google was infuriating critics last week with its Search plus Your World service – the newest social search capability integrating Google+ social results into the top pages of the search engine.
Search plus Your World is adding user reviews to +1s and adding new sharing capabilities to the top of search engine results for users with a Google Profile – essentially ousting Twitter, Facebook and other providers from gaining the advantages of Google’s top real estate. If a user wants to get the latest information on his or her favorite celebrity, instead of getting a Twitter, Facebook or YouTube result, Google+ results will be at the top of SERPs instead (results that have been +1d and reviewed by friend’s in a user’s circle.) Another instance: when users search for definitions on Google they will get Google’s own favored dictionary results instead of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
The most interesting thing about Google’s attempt at what seems to be the exclusion of other providers is that this could mean that providers who want top visibility will have to partner with Google to gain it.
Wide-eyed critics who argue that Google is monopolizing web content are forgetting that Google have always been “excluding” web content and social networks from appearing on top results pages – this is what’s called “invisible web” data (data that’s not indexed on Google.) Yet, Google is simply doing what Microsoft has always done – bundling up their services like Microsoft and Internet Explorer in Windows.
Reaction by others, the Facebook Case
Google has never made Facebook’s thousands of message boards, intranets and chat rooms available on public search (again, a part of Google’s “invisible web”.) This is the reason why Facebook has partnered up with Bing – the two have formed an alliance to work together against Google due to Facebook’s inability to have prominent visibility on Google’s search results. Critics that are calling this an anti-trust violation are fundamentally wrong. Google is expanding its reach and transforming itself into a social search engine based on the creation of social networks or ‘circles’ that allow friends, family, co-workers and most importantly, potential buyers, to use the web in collaboration with others to find the best content.
