Google Owns Photogs: Profiles and Social Search

2 things: Google Profiles and Social Search. They go hand in hand. I suggest you set up something for yourself now and worry about how it will affect you later. I myself am still trying to figure out the benefits of all this as it relates to search engine optimization but I’m confident the ROI will be there. I know one thing – and that is Google knows lots of things. I went through the process of setting up a Google profile and yes it was a 30 minute pain for me, but I anticipate a much greater reward down the line from Google with that quick half-an-hour of setup. Let me say more.

Social Search – Custom Results Based on Your “Circle”

In addition to natural Google search results, you might see custom results from your social circle. For example a Google images search result may also return images from the people you are connected to in Flickr, Picassa, Twitter, or Gmail.

The big news here is that other users may see your images or your content in their search results if they are connected to you. And they don’t have to be directly connected to you. They can be Kevin Bacon and still probably see your stuff. Cool thing is that as a user I am more likely to click on results from my social circle because these are people I know and trust. Hint: you need to get your content into those results. Enter Google Profiles.

Google Profiles Populate the Social Search

Google Profiles (www.google.com/profiles) is yet another Google add on you pretty much have to have. You can use your same Google account as your gmail, Google Analytics, etc. One reason to set this up now is so that someone else doesn’t snatch google.com/profiles/yourname! View my Google profile. Here is a quick video from Google about how and why you would want a Google profile.

I had been using social search for the last month or so in Google labs before it was released broadly in beta. I built out my profile… waited… I didn’t notice anything spectacular. No custom search content for me. Then I realized I didn’t have any contacts populated in my Google account, which is an easy mistake to make because gmail remembers all your addresses without you having to group them ad friends. Now I’ve added a bunch of you as friends and am expecting much better results (Google says it takes a couple weeks). I’m glad I could be the guinea pig and not you.

Populating your profile with lots of contacts and content will only help your own personal search results. See a list of your social circle connections at google.com/s2/search/social. Just connect your main accounts in the links section then your job is done.

As more and more people add Google profiles and those people are following you in other networks (or know people who are), your visibility will increase. It will take a long time for that all to happen, so if you follow my lead then claim your profile name now, build it out a little bit, and then maybe sometime down the line you might see some potential return. I would rather be established now than scrambling later.

Zach recommends Google Blog: Search is Getting More Social

Tagged as: Google profiles, social search