Social Search
Since Google and Bing announced in December of last year that links shared through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter play a part in the algorithms that determine search engine placings, social media strategy has become an increasingly important consideration. Useful read on the subject available here – http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-bing-confirm-twitter-facebook-influence-seo
On the 19th May this year Google launched social search globally – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8523325/Google-launches-social-search-globally.html
What is social search? According to Wikipedia social search is defined as follows:
“is a type of web search that takes into account the Social Graph of the person initiating the Search Query. When applied to web search this Social Graph approach to relevance is in contrast to established algorithmic or machine-based approaches. Search results produced by social search engine give more visibility to content created or touched by users in the Social Graph.”
Google provide an update on social search including a short video which gives a clear idea as to which way they see things heading.
The theory is that web content will be deemed to be validated by how many times it has been liked, shared, retweeted, stumbled upon etc.. etc..
Worth keeping an eye on and make sure content you add to your site is rich, interesting and easy to share!
Some useful sites in a social search context:
www.klout.com – a site that benchmarks your influence on the social web
http://trunk.ly – a site that allows you to track all the links you have shared online and search them. As we all embrace social media more and more this tool will, I think, become increasingly useful.
Further contextual reading
http://socialmediatoday.com/nick-bennett/287405/4-great-free-tools-measure-social-sentiment-and-4-important-stats?ref=headline_rotator
http://socialmediatoday.com/provoke/287388/google-switches-new-age-social-media
