Google+ Gets Big Push With New “Search Plus Your World” Feature

google-plus-red-128Google+, Google’s six-month-old social network, is getting a huge push with today’s announcement of “Search, Plus Your World” – a dramatic change to Google’s search results.

With “Search, Plus Your World” (let’s call it SPYW going forward), Google will begin polling more content from Google+ (and photos from Picasa) into its main search results: content shared with you — even privately! — on Google+, content that you’ve shared there, Google+ user profiles and Google+ pages, too.

Google has also added a new toggle button that lets users turn the SPYW results on or off.

Today’s announcement is the latest step in Google’s heavy push and commitment to Google+. Last summer, Chairman Eric Schmidt suggested that “everything [at Google] will move over to using the + infrastructure.” Google+ content has been showing up more often in Google’s search results since then. Google+ has also been integrated with Gmail, YouTube and numerous other Google products. And the company has done some high-profile TV ads to promote Google+.

Is it working? Well, Hitwise research a week ago showed that Google+ had its biggest traffic month yet in December.

Over at our sister site, Search Engine Land, Danny Sullivan has a very in-depth look at today’s announcement, including potential privacy and competition concerns that it may raise:

Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”

There’s also a lot of coverage on Techmeme.

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Google: Google+ | Top News


About The Author: is Editor-In-Chief of Marketing Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the US. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog.

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  • http://jeffdownerbailbonds.com/ Jeff Downer Indianapolis IN

    It’s day two of this implementation and while I am receiving personalized results, I still am not getting the toggle button option. 

  • http://twitter.com/AskMaribell Maribell

    I am eager to see what this will bring in the next few days. I try not to be skeptical, but it’s hard not to be.  

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