The latest major Google update was announced earlier this month, and as always, it raises a number of questions for SEOs about current working practices.

So what’s changed? And how will it affect your SEO?

What is Search plus Your World?

Google refers to this latest update as ‘Search plus Your World’. Essentially it’s the major roll out of personalised, social search results that those in the SEO industry have been predicting for a couple of years now.

Search plus Your World combines the usual search results with those based on your social graph – images from Picasa, or that have been shared with you on Google+; profiles of people you know and a bias towards content they’ve created themselves or shared on Google+.

Due to Google’s deal with Twitter ending last July, and the restrictions on Facebook data crawling, most social data will be fed from Google properties: Google+, YouTube, Picasa. However, the effectiveness of Your World will depend on widening the net, so don’t be surprised if a new Twitter deal surfaces soon.

Thankfully, Google are implementing a prominent toggle to switch off personalised search, but as we all know, usage of these sorts of toggles is pretty low. As such, it’s safe to say, most people will be using personalised search by default once Your World is fully rolled out.

How will it change SEO?

Given the concentration on Google+, and the relatively low uptake of the service at present, possibly not an awful lot will change with this particular update. However, it is a clear sign of what is to come and should be a wake up call to any SEOs who have ignored social up until now.

For those operating in niches with little or no social activity (plumbing, septic tanks, that sort of thing) personalised results are unlikely to crop up much.

However, where there is social data to be mined, it will be, and that means you have to pay attention.

Social data will be particularly important for content heavy SEO strategies (and whose isn’t these days?) For example, a link from a blog post that has no Google+ shares will likely be worth less than one with 100 Google+ shares.

This means that paying attention to the social worth of both the blog and the post will be important, as will having a solid Google+ presence to encourage sharing.

What impact do you think Google’s latest changes will have on your online world? 

Image Credit: Wallyg

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2012 at 8:19 am and is filed under Search Engine Optimisation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.