As Search Engines Become More Social, Everybody Wins
In the last decade, companies like Google, Bing, and Yahoo have revolutionized the way we discover things online. Well, to be honest, revolutionize might not be the right word. Rather than revolutionize the way we search, they’ve defined the way we search.
Search is changing, now, however. And if we are to use the world “revolutionize” when it comes to search, we should start using it to describe social search. Social search will change the way that people discover things, whether they’re looking for a good dry cleaner or places to eat on their upcoming vacation.
Curious as to how social search will change the way people discover? While things are still being defined, there will no doubt be significant change to the way that you search for things in the near future. This is how social will change search for the better.
More Tailored Results
As social becomes more of a part of search engine rankings, expect your results to be more relevant. This is already happening to some extent, but in the upcoming months and years it will happen even more.
Search engines use algorithms to determine how your results appear. It’s a complex algorithm comprised of a number of things, including a website’s authority, the links it has, and the content that’s produced on it. By incorporating a human element into those results, it’s very possible that your search results could become more tailored to you.
Think of it like this. You’re in Paris for a vacation, and you’re trying to figure out somewhere to eat for dinner. A lot of people solve this problem by searching online, which will give them a result based on the search engine algorithms. If social is included in the mix, that search result could possibly include a restaurant that your neighbors liked when they visited Paris a few years ago.
You could get results based on things that your friends or family have liked or reviewed. Additionally, having a human element included in search engine results could mean that websites are relevant to certain searches, which provides more tailored results.
Less Garbage and More Relevant Content
As social becomes more integrated with search, the possibility that you’ll get less “garbage” with your search results becomes greater. Search engines will begin to reply less on the link structure of specific web pages, which benefits the user as link spam could become a thing of the past.
“Spamdexing” is an unfortunate, unethical SEO tactic that doesn’t do anything to improve the quality of the website and is considered “black hat”. As social becomes more relevant to search engines, spamdexing could become eradicated, as human input will become a factor into the ranking algorithms.
Since the overall amount of spam will likely be reduced with the rise of social search, it can be assumed that companies will have to work harder to provide meaningful and relevant content in order to increase their rankings organically. This leads to a more colorful web full of content that is meant for the reader.
Current Results
Social search will help to bring your current results for what you are searching for. Have you ever searched for something to reference for an article, only to find information that’s many years outdated? With social search, the likelihood of that happening decreases, and current and relevant information becomes more available.
Social search engines are constantly receiving updated feedback from a variety of different human sources, which means they’ll be more relevant and be able to provide more current results. This could make search engines act more like social network streams like Twitter, where you’re getting real time constantly updated results.
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