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Our Google+ Conundrum

By - January 14, 2012

I’m going to add another Saturday morning sketch to this site, and offer a caveat to you all: I’ve not bounced this idea off many folks, and the seed of it comes from a source who is unreservedly biased about all this. But I thought this worth airing out, so here you have it.

Given that Google+ results are dominating so many SERPs these days, Google is clearly leveraging its power in search to build up Google+. Unless a majority of people start turning SPYW (Search Plus Your World) off, or decide to search in a logged out way, Google has positioned Google+ as a sort of “mini Internet,” a place where you can find results for a large percentage of your queries.(My source is pretty direct about this: “Google has decided that beating Facebook is worth selling their soul.”)

But to my point. An example of samesaid is the search I did this morning for that Hitler video I posted. Here’s a screenshot of my results:

 

As you can see, the Universal search feature kicked in, and put News results at the top. I know that news results won’t get me straight to the video, I want the YouTube or Vimeo page, not a story about the video. So I look to the results below. The next four results are from Google+. Right below the fold is the actual YouTube video. I didn’t see it on first blush.

So I found that video by clicking on someone’s Google+ post about it (see how the first one is purple, and not blue? That’s the one I clicked on). Some dude I don’t know posted it to Google+, I clicked through to his post (gaining Google another pageview), then clicked through the video to YouTube. That’s lame. That’s not a Googley search experience.

But if that’s how the world of Google works now, that means it’s very important that you tend your Google+ pages, so that you rank well in Google search. Google has pretty much gamed its own search engine to insure Google+ will succeed.

This is what happens when you tell your entire staff that your salary depends on winning in social. 

Now, this presents us all a conundrum. If a large percentage of people are logged into Google and/or Google+ when they are searching for stuff, that means Google+ pages are going to rank well for those people. Hence, I really have no choice but to play Google’s game, and tend to my Google+ page, be I a brand, a person, a small business…. are you getting the picture here? If you decide to NOT play on Google+, you will, in essence, be devalued in Google search, at least for the percentage of people who are logged in whilst using Google.

I dunno. This strikes me as wrong. I’ve spent nearly ten years building this site, Searchblog, and it has tens of thousands of inbound links, six thousand posts, nearly 30,000 comments, etc., etc. But if you are logged into Google+ and search for me, you’re going to get my Google+ profile first.

Seems a bit off. Seems like Google is taking the first click away from me and directing it to a Google service.

Now, if I decide to protest this, and delete my Google+ account, I better pray no one else named John Battelle creates a Google+ account, or they will rank ahead of me. And while Battelle is a pretty unique name, there are actually quite a few of us out there. Imagine if my name was John Kelly? Or Joe Smith?

Yikes. Quite a conundrum.

Again, just sketching on a Saturday morning. It’s a beautiful day, so I think I’ll stop, take a ride, and think a bit more about it before I write anymore.

Related:

It’s Not About Search Anymore, It’s About Deals

Hitler Is Pissed About Google+

Google Responds: No,That’s Not How Facebook Deal Went Down (Oh, And I Say: The Search Paradigm Is Broken)

Compete To Death, or Cooperate to Compete?

Twitter Statement on Google+ Integration with Google Search

Search, Plus Your World, As Long As It’s Our World

 

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  • http://www.postlinearity.com gregorylent

    capitalism is evil

  • Tizio

    I’ve read this blog post using google reader…
    Now I would like to say “I like it” but they removed the function in google reader.
    I can do a “plus one” but I would have to upgrade to google+

    Also, for most of the time I just need to search the web. So for me this new “search google+ and then eventually the rest of the world” is just annoying.

    Would had been more usefull to be able to decide what kind of search I intend to make….
    With sidebar menu options like news, images, etc…
    And now I understand why they removed “Realtime”… because of twitter not in the bucket and the need to move google+ into search by default.

    I’m not happy with almost every recent change that google is trying tu push…

    • Emptiness

      So just upgrade to Google Plus??

      If it is annoying turn it off??

      People complaining for the sake of complaining is just pathetic!

  • http://www.techinsidr.com Techinsidr

    Very insightful post John… gets me thinking. I met you a while back (2008) when I was interning at Intel and I truly think you’re one of the only guys who “gets” the social web.  

    This is a touchy subject, but I admire your courage for stepping up and asking the right questions.  I’m still not sure where I stand on this, but it does seem like a slippery slope when you’re modifying an “unbiased” search result to push your own product.  If anything, it seems like a huge regulatory risk for Google.

  • Anonymous

    “But if you are logged into Google+ and search for me, you’re going to get my Google+ profile first.”

    Actually, I AM logged into Google+ and just did a search for “John Battelle”. Here are the first five results:
    1. John Battelle’s Search Blog, going to battellemedia.com
    2. A G+ post by you titled “On the Whole G+ Thing… Compete to Death, or Cooperate to Compete”… linking to https://plus.google.com/113920721823301219308/posts/jdP5eUpZohv3.
    3. The Wikipedia article for John Battelle
    4. A link to twitter.com/johnbattelle
    5. A link to www.federatedmedia.net/blog/about-our-team/

    The main SPYW difference is that at the very top I see 3 little 24px  x 24px thumbnails (you, Vic G, and Loic Le Meur) with a link to see just the “80 personal results” returned — but this takes up no extra real estate since it’s on the same line that continues “ and 968,000 other results (0.56 seconds)”

    • Guest

      Me too, Josh. I love these filter bubbles.

    • Anonymous

      Indeed. Only people who have circled John Battelle on Google+, and thus indicated their interest in his Google+ content, are likely to see his Google+ content appear in their searches.

      There is a great deal of misunderstanding about this SPYW on the web these days.

      • Guest

        I entirely agree. I do not understand bloggers and journalists at the moment. A simple search on Google News for “google” allows one to listen to a very loud echo chamber. And it’s hard to hear much that is making sense to me in that noise…

      • http://www.facebook.com/blake Blake Ross

        This is false. Content from your Google+ “suggested connections” — i.e. people that  Google *thinks* you might know — is also weighted in Google search results. John, feel free to follow up directly with me for examples and screenshots.

    • Anonymous

      Thanks for that. Perhaps it’s only if you have me in circles?

      • Guest

        Ah, interesting. Also, the “John Battelle” information from G+ is actually pretty useful and good, whereas it is harder to quickly find information about you on your website. Perhaps the web snippets for personal identity need to be better…

        • Anonymous

          Of course, Facebook might argue my page is pretty good…and my “about page” on Searchblog or FM is also pretty good

          • FollowTheMoney

            Yeah but they are no Google ads on FB or Searchblog, and Google+ will soon be flooded with them.

            Making money for Google is best for the user, dontcha know?

          • Anonymous

            Yes, there are ads on both those sites! FM sells mine

          • http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/ Bhagwad Jal Park

            If you think about it for a short while, spidering and displaying another social network’s data is fraught with complications without a firehose to have direct access to the updates.

            Suppose you suddenly make your Facebook profile private? Google’s index might take a day or so (perhaps more) to notice and implement the change on all their services. In the meantime what? Your profile is still visible publicly – not good, can run into major privacy issues and Google is screwed.

            Sorry, but I don’t buy the logic that “just because Facebook data is publicly available” it has to always appear as featured search results. Dangerous.

            Not to mention that Facebook’s ToS is fuzzy at best about this kind of thing.

          • Anonymous

            Public is public, and traditionally, that page should get ranked objectively….

      • ToldYa

        Those that will suffer the most, ironically, are those with most fans, circles or whatever. I have BoingBoing in my circles and their stories have been shared quite a bit, so when I search for them or their stories, instead of showing the BoingBoing net links, Google has filled my screen with Google+ mentions of BB stories. Understand the difference, it’s major. BoingBoing is working for free and for Google, pretty much.

        Traffic to boingboing-net will suffer tremendously as this gets more popular and as Google tweaks it to send less and less clicks. The have done the same with images, local, products and a million other things, trying to send less traffic to the best sites but more to Google. You need to understand that Google will make it worst, as bad as it is now. In essence publishers will write so Google can sell some ads in Google+, as most average users click on the top links, whatever they are.

        *********
        Larry Page in 2004:

        “PLAYBOY: With the addition of e-mail, Froogle—your new shopping
        site—and Google news, plus your search engine, will Google become a
        portal similar to Yahoo, AOL or MSN? Many Internet companies were
        founded as portals. It was assumed that the more services you provided,
        the longer people would stay on your website and the more revenue you
        could generate from advertising and pay services.

        PAGE: We built a business on the opposite message. We want you to come
        to Google and quickly find what you want. Then we’re happy to send you
        to the other sites. In fact, that’s the point. The portal strategy tries
        to own all of the information.

        PLAYBOY: Portals attempt to create what they call sticky content to keep a user as long as possible.

        PAGE: That’s the problem. Most portals show their own content above
        content elsewhere on the web. We feel that’s a conflict of interest,
        analogous to taking money for search results. Their search engine
        doesn’t necessarily provide the best results; it provides the portal’s
        results. Google conscientiously tries to stay away from that. We want to
        get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. It’s a
        very different model.”

        *****

        Everyone in the industry knows that Google favors their advertisers (brands) in many ways but they denied with “we have data that shows it’s best for the users…trust us…” this G+ thing is so obvious, I’m shocked they did it. Google will do what is best for their next quarter’s earnings, so it’s good people like John are waking up.

        • Anonymous

          let’s see how it plays out over time. I’m not pleased with Google adding its layer on top of the independent web, one more click before you can get to my site or BB or anywhere….I don’t know how long that will stand.

    • Anonymous

      Agreed. Too many assumptions and not enough actual data/examples. Let’s see how this works before we accuse Google of “selling their soul”.  The conundrum is Google is “damned if they do, damned if they don’t.”  

      • Anonymous

        They could do a better job rolling it out…in terms of comms, if the algos are going to change, if RSS etc. is coming, etc.

        • Larry’s Google

          John, get with the program. Google is offering free classes at a Community College on how to use Google now. It’s your fault, you don’t know how to use it.

           The old system of entering a f-ng phrase and 10 links to the best sites showing up (with some ads) is so old; welcome to the “$40 Billion of revenue and $10 Billion in profit even after great pay and benefits is not enough” Google. Now even an internet pioneer like you needs advice on how to search a search engine. No doubt it’s your fault–or so the fanboi arguments go. 

          • Anonymous

            Sign me up!

        • Larry’s Google

          John, get with the program. Google is offering free classes at a Community College on how to use Google now. It’s your fault, you don’t know how to use it.

           The old system of entering a f-ng phrase and 10 links to the best sites showing up (with some ads) is so old; welcome to the “$40 Billion of revenue and $10 Billion in profit even after great pay and benefits is not enough” Google. Now even an internet pioneer like you needs advice on how to search a search engine. No doubt it’s your fault–or so the fanboi arguments go. 

    • http://www.bhagwad.com/blog/ Bhagwad Jal Park

      Same here. I searched for “John Battelle” and 
      http://battellemedia.com/ was the very first result. This will be true for anyone who’s not in your circles. Isn’t this what one expects?

      Tempest in a teacup.

  • http://www.litigationandtrial.com/ Max Kennerly

    Add in this additional issue: the easy way to play that game is to have your blog’s RSS feed plug right into Google+. But they don’t permit that. 

    Google has thus set up a system in which the most effective path is for someone to write something and then cut-and-paste to somewhere else just so someone searching for it can find it and then click through it to the actual content. Two tiresome, unnecessary steps. How could that be the best solution for users or content creators?

    • Anonymous

      Oh my, they should have that RSS (and Twitter) feature

      • http://thezargon.org Fernando Fonseca

        @MaxKennerly:disqus It is wrong when you say that Google doesn’t “permit that”. The facts are slightly different. Google+ Read/Write is already being tested and it will be become available to the general public after those tests are over making sharing of content seamless, like you can do now to Twitter and/or Facebook via several tools. 

  • http://profiles.google.com/janniklindquist Jannik Lindquist

    You don’t seem to realize that another John Battelle will only show up in peoples personal search, if they have that John Battelle in their circles. And, obviously, that would make that John Battelle relevant as a search result for those people

    • Anonymous

      As I said, sketching. I depend on smarter readers to set me straight. Thanks.

      • Guest

        I really appreciate your open minded attitude and exploration about this topic, John.  I, for example, take a very different opinion about what Google is doing here and think that it is fighting for itself, the web and its users in a way that I want and in no way has it “sold its soul”.

        • Anonymous

          can you expand on that?

          • zandra

            i think what he means is that Google needs to do this to fight off FB and maintain its dominance. now that FB has also gone public( a recent response to g+) an FB search can’t be too far along. this is a preemptive strike. like it or not for Google the next step to search needs social integrated.

          • Anonymous

            I’m not sure FB search would be what you might think. They have Bing for Web search. I have a post in me about what FB search would look like

          • zandra

            the FB search was limited. only until recently that FB has implemented the Subscribe feature. it can do something similar to search plus now. scoble and all the other influencers in g+ are also in FB.

      • Blake Ross

        This is false. Log out of Google and type “Sheryl Sandberg” into the search box. You’ll see her Google+ profile right in the typeahead. Doesn’t matter that she’s not in your circles. In fact, it doesn’t even matter that you’re not a Google+ user.

        • 1234567

          Cool find Blake (btw, I’m a huge fan of Firefox)! 

          I wonder if, oddly enough, Sheryl Sandberg’s G+ page is timely source of verified posts that she has made? Her Twitter page also appears to be, but I cannot find a public page for her other than the copypasta wikipedia Facebook one (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sheryl-Sandberg/115484035170768). Ironically, that might make the G+ page more ‘relevant’ than the publicly available Facebook page. I’m not suggesting that Google may not be favoring its own properties here, but it was hard for me to find a page that I wanted to be first there other than the Twitter account.

          Perhaps Sheryl has a blog that should be first? It would be great to know what you think should be the first result as it is quite a cool example.

        • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

          Interesting. I typed “Sheryl Sandberg” into the Google search field (logged out) and there was absolutely nothing about her Google + profile in the search results. Wikipedia, blog, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles yes, but no Google+.

          • 49ers!!!

            I do hope that Google isn’t just trying to taunt Facebook directors.

          • Anonymous

            I’m not sure search is consistent across any single person’s results anymore.

          • http://www.facebook.com/blake Blake Ross

            I’m referring to the typeahead here. This is consistent.

          • Anonymous

            AH thanks.

          • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

            Got it now. I was looking at the word ‘typeahead’ but apparently not seeing it. That’s the problem with old(er) age I suppose?

          • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

            Got it now. I was looking at the word ‘typeahead’ but apparently not seeing it. That’s the problem with old(er) age I suppose?

          • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

            I’m sure it’s not especially when Google, at the very least adjusts search results (depending on what you search for of course) according to your location or at least your ISPs nearest server/router. Like everything, this has it’s assets and liabilities.

            On an interesting but somewhat unrelated note, the above reason is one of the reasons why ‘Linux Mint’ stopped using Google as it’s main default search engine for it’s default browser (Firefox) and went with ‘Duck Duck Go’ instead. Yeah, I know…weird name but decent search engine. But then again, Google was a pretty weird name for a search engine when it appeared in the late 90s.

          • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

            I’m sure it’s not especially when Google, at the very least adjusts search results (depending on what you search for of course) according to your location or at least your ISPs nearest server/router. Like everything, this has it’s assets and liabilities.

            On an interesting but somewhat unrelated note, the above reason is one of the reasons why ‘Linux Mint’ stopped using Google as it’s main default search engine for it’s default browser (Firefox) and went with ‘Duck Duck Go’ instead. Yeah, I know…weird name but decent search engine. But then again, Google was a pretty weird name for a search engine when it appeared in the late 90s.

        • http://jfno.net/blog Jean-François Noël

          I did the search logged in and out, wikipedia is the first result followed by TED talks and the only social page is her twitter page. 

          Also a “John Battelle” logged in search still list this page first, than wikipedia and Google Plus third, since I have him in my circles this is pretty reasonable. I don’t like where this is going, but we are not there yet. The next big lock in to break is the Data lock in. We will have to see companies abuse it so user start caring enough to choose alternate solutions.

          • 101010101

            To give the users keys to those data locks, I would love to see more companies implement something like:

            http://www.dataliberation.org/ 

            (I don’t mean to use Google as an example here, but I don’t find the zip file from Facebook very useful and I don’t see other services very useful services from other companies. There is so much friction to exit so many services. I wonder if there is a business model for overcoming this friction?)

          • Anonymous

            Singly…

          • http://www.facebook.com/blake Blake Ross

            Again, look at the results in the *typeahead* as you type into Google.com — which are even more crucial than the results on the page, since they appear first.

    • Larry’s serfs

      The biggest loss in traffic would be from generic keywords or long tail. John Battelle is known no doubt, but I’d bet that most of his traffic has nothing to do with “John Battelle”  but with terms he touches in his pages, are in titles and comments. If he doesn’t something is wrong.

      Example: If you search for, say, “Gogle+ Facebook” this page may have ranked high and John would have gotten quite a few visitors since it covers it in detail and is a well linked page. But now even the most casual mention, even if Facebook is mentioned once (think “Google + competes with Facebook,” a dozen Google+ posts will outrank this, leading John and Jane to lose visitors, to Google’s gain. As Ben Edelman pointed out, all the images and whistles Google adds to it’s links make even more likely for people to click on them.

      Amazon doesn’t get most of traffic by people searching Amazon, but for individual products searches or for broad ones like “waterproof backpack.” Branded searches are usually in low %.

      • Anonymous

        If how it’s been rolled out is how it will always be, agree for sure. I’m trying to get deeper into this with folks at Google.

  • Guest

    “But if you are logged into Google+ and search for me, you’re going to get my Google+ profile first.” 
    It seems to me that there could be a feature for google+ personal pages similar to how I understand the badges for google+ pages are supposed to work. If you place the badge on your webpage than google knows that it is John Battelle’s webpage and can therefore can confidently present the webpage as yours, just as if you search for Marvel the first link is marvel.com and not the marvel google+ page.
    I agree this requires you to teach google that your webpage is your blog and that google+ is not your online representative, which isn’t ideal, but it might address the issue that you are speaking about.

    On a side note (and a little regrettably), if my google search for John Battelle is going to return links and information that I want to see (as opposed to what how you want Google to represent you), I would actually prefer to see the google+ result first. I like the consistency of a google search for a person providing me a familiar result about a person’s identity etc… 

    However, I do understand how you feel that you are in a bind.

    • Anonymous

      Again, search is all about personalization now, which breaks the old paradigm..

  • SN Nayak

    The points you have raised are valid, but the screenshot and description of how you got these search results is sadly misleading. You wrote “…
    An example of samesaid is the search I did this morning for that Hitler video I posted. Here’s a screenshot of my results:” followed by the screenshot. You (rather conveniently) forgot to mention that these results appeared after you clicked the “xx Personal results” link. As has been mentioned Ad Nauseum, there is an EXTREMELY SIMPLE way of switching these results off completely, or even ignoring them given the small font. The positioning at the top is rather telling, but where else would one have it?

    I agree with you that to win with Google’s new strategy, having a strong G+ presence is handy. But I fail to see how Google has radically changed it’s search algorithm to prioritise G+ over the ‘real web’ results. As far as I can see, there is a very clear and distinct demarcation between the two, the demarcation being the summary at the top which says something like “50 personal results and 1,680,000,000 other results (0.54 seconds)”. So, if you want to play in the ‘Personal Results’ space, by all means go ahead and bolster your G+ presence. If not, you’ll still get the same hits and search results as before.

    • Lee

      Dude, seriously? When making a statement, maybe try it out first?  I don’t use Google+ (deleted my account) and just performed the search “Hitler heard about google search plus your world”… what did I get? A news result and then 4 Google+ results… link to actual video below the fold.  I did NOT click on “xx Personal results” because I have no personal results.  So no, NOT “sadly misleading”.  Sadly dead accurate.

      • http://jfno.net/blog Jean-François Noël

        This is really misleading because the video is titled “Hitler hears about …” and if you do that search the video is first. Now if you do the search with “heard” than the you get all sorts of posts talking of the hitler video and using the word “heard” somewhere else in the post and John post on battellemedia because he is the one using this exact phrasing. 

        This for now is like saying you do a search without quotation mark for “Hitler foobar about google search plus your world” and then get all messed up because the video is not first, but some post using the word foobar and pointing to the video is first.

        With more post and more links, it is possible that the video end up being first with even the word “heard” instead of “hears”, but not this quickly.

      • Anonymous

        Again, I am not sure results are the same for all, even when logged out. I just don’t know. Danny I bet will get to the bottom of this (at least I hope he does)

  • Cary Sherburne

    Does anyone else find it ironic that the acronym for Google’s new search hugely features SPY?  SPYW …

  • Anonymous

    Google isn’t ranking Google+ posts higher than anything else. The same algorithm applies to a Google+ post as it does to a blog post. If it happens that a Google+ post is more relavent than some blog post then the Google+ post will rank higher. If not, the blog post will rank higher. It’s still all done algorithmically.

    • Fraud

      Total BS. I got Google news talking about it, a strip of several images from G images, two Google+ posts that talked about the Hitler video and then youtube and then some more Google+ crap. I have a huge monitor and resolution but default setting see Google+ full first page.

  • Fkjadshfhjdasf

    In my search of the hitler video, I only see the first 2 G+ results that is actually in your screen shot. The rest of the results are the video and other web links. This happens to be the same list as when I turn off SPYW.

    I did a search for “John Battelle” while logged in and I have not followed your G+ account… your G+ account does not even show up in my SPYW results until the 3rd page of results.

    The way I understand SPYW, G+ posts will rank higher *because* they are being passed around in your circles somewhere. Just being logged in does not automatically rank everything G+ higher, they must also be part of the discussions in your circles. That is exactly what personalization is because you have made the effort to follow those people on your own terms.

  • http://www.postlinearity.com gregorylent

    death by confirmation bias

  • http://kbskobac.blogspot.com kskobac

    One problem with the way Google handles Google+ content in search results is that it doesn’t roll-up endorsement or discussion, such as how a Techmeme-like page would have.  Results 3-5 in your screenshot above should be rolled up as one result, with faces of your contacts in a line and the comments threaded below.  Then it would be a “signal” rather than a flooding of content that feels more like a spammy content farm than anything (even if its your friends discussion).

    • Anonymous

      yeah I bet that fix happens. it should.

      • http://www.ratdiary.com spragued

        You guys are missing the point. If Google wanted Google+ results to be just one “signal” among many they needn’t show the Google+ links at all (just as they don’t show the thousands of signals that are used to calculate PageRank). They are calling out the individual G+ links *precisely* to raise G+’s profile in SERPs and put pressure on (advertisers mostly) to migrate to G+.

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  • http://dempseymarketing.com/journal/media/ Robert Dempsey

    This entire situation just comes to show Google as yet another company among companies who act as they’ve been trained to do – in their own best interest. Does this go against their “do no evil” mantra? Depends on your definition of evil.

    If you consider becoming a utility to billions of people throughout the globe and then ensuring that you win over literally everyone that takes part in or competes with your utility then yes Google has reversed their “do no evil” position. If you don’t see that as evil then they’re just doing what companies do.

  • Told Ya

    Well, well, well. Didn’t I tell you that this is for Google to keep traffic to Google? To become a portal, but without any content. They want to use people’s content hoping enough users click on Google+ and then click on ads. Relevancy of course suffers.

    Wake up Battelle: Google is going to drive everyone out of business if they have their way. By the time they wake up or another takes their place many business will suffer. Google’s engineers like Amit Singhal (head of search) seem to have no pride, he surely doesn’t need the money and can leave tomorrow. Yet, they are manipulatign results so openly after doing it very stealthily for a few years.

    • Anonymous

      I’m pretty sure I’m awake.

  • Reality

    “Hence, I really have no choice but to play Google’s game, and tend to my
    Google+ page, be I a brand, a person, a small business…. are you
    getting the picture here? If you decide to NOT play on Google+, you
    will, in essence, be devalued in Google search, at least for the
    percentage of people who are logged in whilst using Google.”

    By tending it you can try to have your Google+ page rank, but the number of people visiting your site at @johnbattelle:disqus  are slim compared to before where they clicked a direct link.

    You lost a visitor and an ad display, Google won one…times a billion times an hour or whatever search numbers they get. “Your” G+ page is not yours, you cannot even post certain things or you’ll lose your account, imagine ads. So whatever you post on G+, you are building content for Google, content that they will use to bankrupt you. This is going to destroy publishers, merchants and especially small, independent ad networks as page-views on non-Google properties will plummet.

    We should have watched Google as they grew, we will regret that.

    • Anonymous

      I am a firm believer that the Internet will route around bad things.

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  • Esther Montgomery

    I’m at sea with this. Disconcerted by concern about what Google is doing when I don’t understand the issues. Do know that Google+ is irritating. I don’t want to be drawn into spending even more time managing my internet use or socially interacting – but nor to I want to be marginalised by ‘not taking part’. I want a neutral search that doesn’t take my previous interests into account. And I don’t like the way my inbox is beginning to clutter with emails from people recommending articles. However it is doing it, Google seems to be trying to narrow my world, fill it with litter and take up my time.

  • Amir Tocker

    After reading the post I thought the only logical next step is to google “google conundrum”. 
    Here’s what I found:
    a) I did get personalized results. 
    b) There were no links to G+ in the first few results. 
    c) The link to the blog post was (oh sweet irony) emphazised by a G+ connection.
    d) If I click on the “personal results” link at the top, all I get is mentions of the post… 
    I think the problem with Google is that because it normally does good, any (persived) sway from pure altruism is regarded as pure evil. Think about that other company. They routinely promote their products in shady ways. So no one would be bothered with any bias in their search engine results. 

  • http://gravytrain.ca/vancouver-seo/ Gravytrain – Vancouver SEO

    Nice post. To be honest, I’m of the belief that Google is going to get nailed for these changes at some point in the very near future. Who knows, they may end up getting rolled back.

  • Claudia Maria

    I wish there were strong alternatives to the Google search engine, because their filter bubbles drive me crazy.  You and I can run the exact same query, yet wind up with widely different results.  This TEDtalk does a great job of explaining the impact of these filter bubbles:  http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

    • Guest

      I think you look at this more closely, Google has in fact popped the filter bubble:

      http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/01/google-filter-bubble/
      This is not 2009-2011 anymore, where social search is occurring but there is no option to turn it off.

      • Anonymous

        Instrumentation is how we take our Internet back.

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  • http://avc.com fredwilson

    in the summer of last year, we started to feel that google was overplaying their search hand, mostly in local and video. we had no idea they would do the same in social. that led to our investment in duck duck go. i’m not saying that DDG will supplant google in search. that is not part of our investment thesis in DDG in the least. but we believe that as google overplays its search hand to support its other lines of business, some percentage of its loyal users will leave. will they go to bing? sure some of them will. but we think they may go elsewhere too. google is like IE in some ways. users will tire of the bullshit. that will lead to the firefox and chrome and safari of search.

    • Anonymous

      Interesting Fred.
      I wonder if they’ll roll out a “Google Lite” that is just pure web search again, the way it was before.

  • Yusri Ghouse

    To be honest i am a Google fan boy, but im going to try and look at this in an unbiased way. what Google did is bad to some good to others. If SPYW only affects people who are logged in then people who aren’t logged in are not really and issue. On the other hand to the people who are logged in they get to see your G+ page first and only after clicking on that and then clicking on a link to your site can they reach your site right? so why is that bad or unfair? I mean all this means is that you need to make and maintain a G+ account. Its really a genius plan from Google don’t you think? remember im trying not to be biased and the questions i asked are not meant to be rhetorical, i am genuinely asking why this is so bad.

  • http://www.thelostagency.com/ David Iwanow

    I would just say instead of deleting it why not have some fun? Really Google won’t care that you deleted your account out of protest….

    • Anonymous

      Meaning?

      • http://www.thelostagency.com/ David Iwanow

        Well you say one of the issues is how it always points to Google services like YouTube… why not shift the balance to sharing only Vimeo links… Google promotes links to your Google+ post so why not only share your Facebook updates or Tweets… shake it up and little and share the love beyond just Google services

  • http://blog.bradnoble.com/ bradnoble

    This got mentioned elsewhere in the comments, but got shorted: that this discomfort we are talking ourselves through has a lot to do with how they’re packaging all this—as a feature update to the same core offering.

    It’s like having a bad boss who doesn’t square his vision with the employees; the employees are left to talk all day about where the boss might be steering the company.

    Also, as an aside, it seems to me that by favoring G+ posts (what you rightly call Google’s “mini internet”), Google is actually making it’s unfathomably awesome and enormously powerful core offering seem much smaller.

  • http://www.ratdiary.com spragued

    John, you needn’t get caught up in the details of execution (leave that work to Danny Sullivan). Keep hitting on the top level: Google has upended the relevance algorithms and changed the rules of SEO in order to push their Facebook killer. Leveraging a monopoly position to punish a competitor is clearly questionable.

    Given your contacts, where I think you could really shed light is on the question of internal dissension (no doubt there are people in the search division unhappy with this strategic direction) and whether Microsoft will take advantage of this to recruit engineers., etc.

    • Anonymous

      Not just Microsoft. Twitter, Facebook, all companies in the Valley

      • Thieves

        Where do you work?

        At Google.

        Oh, you manipulate search results, demote competitors, betray people that trusted you and confuse users to click on ads thinking it’s content.

        Yeah. isn’t that cool?

        Ummmm….no. That’s cheating and if it isn’t criminal, it should be.

        What? But we are Googlers, a different type of…

      • Thieves

        Where do you work?

        At Google.

        Oh, you manipulate search results, demote competitors, betray people that trusted you and confuse users to click on ads thinking it’s content.

        Yeah. isn’t that cool?

        Ummmm….no. That’s cheating and if it isn’t criminal, it should be.

        What? But we are Googlers, a different type of…

  • Clemmerl

    You know which search engine lists a link to the video for the search “Hitler heard about google search plus your world” at the very top? Bing, which I’ll be switching to now.

    • Scroogle

      Wow! Bing has youtube, 100% correct since it’s hosted there even if it’s not Bing owned, Boing Boing that was the first to publicize (massive links to it)  and then localseo… that actually did the video. Perfect IMO.

  • Thomas Hawk

    Personally I think Google+ is a superior social network to Twitter and Facebook.  And yet some people don’t move over mostly because they don’t want to make the commitment of rebuilding things all over again and they don’t like change so much.  Their “friends” aren’t there yet, etc. A lot of people/brands/organizations are invested in how they are already doing things and are invested in promoting the status quo that works for them.

    Photographs look far better on Google+, but conversations also flow better. Circles are much better way to organize your contacts, hangouts are a wonderful communication tool.  Being able to broadcast and record hangouts is even more powerful.  All of the niche hangout oriented shows that will roll out over the year will be welcome long tail content.  Finally there will be more on “television” about photography because it will be homegrown so easily.

    Already I can watch a show where people compete live editing photos, a show called “Life Through the Lens” hangouts with photo experts hosted by Trey Ratcliff and more.

    None of this is possible on Twitter or Facebook.  Does this threaten the broadcast TV industry?  Not today yet, but eventually.  It certainly threatens facebook, twitter, etc.  But this new technology by Google will be far more disruptive.  It will create though a rich fabric for us all to share and communicate.  The best we’ve ever seen.I for one welcome any sort of “encouragement” Google can give to get others to make this reality happen faster.  I also welcome the competitive pressure it puts on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Photos are horrible on Twitter.  Who wants to see a photograph as a little squiggle of text?  Facebook has already become competing.  Look how much larger photos are on Facebook than before Google+.  All of a sudden they are willing to pay for bigger bandwidth to give them to us bigger.  That’s GREAT. 

    • Anonymous

      It’s cool that you like it Thomas, my issues have to do with how Google seems to have taken its supreme position in distribution of traffic of good intent and tipped it toward itself….

  • Thomas Hawk

    Personally I think Google+ is a superior social network to Twitter and Facebook.  And yet some people don’t move over mostly because they don’t want to make the commitment of rebuilding things all over again and they don’t like change so much.  Their “friends” aren’t there yet, etc. A lot of people/brands/organizations are invested in how they are already doing things and are invested in promoting the status quo that works for them.

    Photographs look far better on Google+, but conversations also flow better. Circles are much better way to organize your contacts, hangouts are a wonderful communication tool.  Being able to broadcast and record hangouts is even more powerful.  All of the niche hangout oriented shows that will roll out over the year will be welcome long tail content.  Finally there will be more on “television” about photography because it will be homegrown so easily.

    Already I can watch a show where people compete live editing photos, a show called “Life Through the Lens” hangouts with photo experts hosted by Trey Ratcliff and more.

    None of this is possible on Twitter or Facebook.  Does this threaten the broadcast TV industry?  Not today yet, but eventually.  It certainly threatens facebook, twitter, etc.  But this new technology by Google will be far more disruptive.  It will create though a rich fabric for us all to share and communicate.  The best we’ve ever seen.I for one welcome any sort of “encouragement” Google can give to get others to make this reality happen faster.  I also welcome the competitive pressure it puts on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Photos are horrible on Twitter.  Who wants to see a photograph as a little squiggle of text?  Facebook has already become competing.  Look how much larger photos are on Facebook than before Google+.  All of a sudden they are willing to pay for bigger bandwidth to give them to us bigger.  That’s GREAT. 

  • Thomas Hawk

    Personally I think Google+ is a superior social network to Twitter and Facebook.  And yet some people don’t move over mostly because they don’t want to make the commitment of rebuilding things all over again and they don’t like change so much.  Their “friends” aren’t there yet, etc. A lot of people/brands/organizations are invested in how they are already doing things and are invested in promoting the status quo that works for them.

    Photographs look far better on Google+, but conversations also flow better. Circles are much better way to organize your contacts, hangouts are a wonderful communication tool.  Being able to broadcast and record hangouts is even more powerful.  All of the niche hangout oriented shows that will roll out over the year will be welcome long tail content.  Finally there will be more on “television” about photography because it will be homegrown so easily.

    Already I can watch a show where people compete live editing photos, a show called “Life Through the Lens” hangouts with photo experts hosted by Trey Ratcliff and more.

    None of this is possible on Twitter or Facebook.  Does this threaten the broadcast TV industry?  Not today yet, but eventually.  It certainly threatens facebook, twitter, etc.  But this new technology by Google will be far more disruptive.  It will create though a rich fabric for us all to share and communicate.  The best we’ve ever seen.I for one welcome any sort of “encouragement” Google can give to get others to make this reality happen faster.  I also welcome the competitive pressure it puts on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Photos are horrible on Twitter.  Who wants to see a photograph as a little squiggle of text?  Facebook has already become competing.  Look how much larger photos are on Facebook than before Google+.  All of a sudden they are willing to pay for bigger bandwidth to give them to us bigger.  That’s GREAT. 

    • http://thomashawk.com/ Thomas Hawk

      sorry, not sure why this double posted.  Disqus said system error when I tried to post the first time.

      • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

        Same here but you can go into your Disqus Dashbaord (drop-down menu at the top of the comment thread on the right) and delete the duplicates. The problem with Disqus when it messes up is every time you click the “Post as [name]” button and nothing happens it actually submits your comment. So if you click it once and nothing happens then click it a couple times more then your comment is submitted each time but you just don’t know it. *Then* the “System error” will finally show up.

        • http://thomashawk.com/ Thomas Hawk

          ugh, ok, I think I got rid of a few of them.  Disqus should work better than that.  Maybe Google+ needs to come out with a commenting system.  :)

          • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

            Oh, heavens forbid! Then people will complain that Google is indexing their article comments as well! (even though Facebook does that with their comment system?) :-)

          • Anonymous

            I wouldn’t use it.

          • http://thomashawk.com/ Thomas Hawk

            I would.  :)

          • Anonymous

            Ack, have lost the thread Thomas. you would what?

      • Anonymous

        I think it came in…

  • Garnet

    So this move is why Google+ launched with its real-name-only policy, right? If you conduct yourself socially on Google+ strictly under a nickname, it would be harder to direct people Googling your real name to your Google+ activity, which the company wants to do.

  • http://thomashawk.com/ Thomas Hawk

    Personally I think Google+ is a superior social network to Twitter and Facebook.  And yet some people don’t move over mostly because they don’t want to make the commitment of rebuilding things all over again and they don’t like change so much.  Their “friends” aren’t there yet, etc. A lot of people/brands/organizations are invested in how they are already doing things and are invested in promoting the status quo that works for them.

    Photographs look far better on Google+, but conversations also flow better. Circles are much better way to organize your contacts, hangouts are a wonderful communication tool.  Being able to broadcast and record hangouts is even more powerful.  All of the niche hangout oriented shows that will roll out over the year will be welcome long tail content.  Finally there will be more on “television” about photography because it will be homegrown so easily.

    Already I can watch a show where people compete live editing photos, a show called “Life Through the Lens” hangouts with photo experts hosted by Trey Ratcliff and more.

    None of this is possible on Twitter or Facebook.  Does this threaten the broadcast TV industry?  Not today yet, but eventually.  It certainly threatens facebook, twitter, etc.  But this new technology by Google will be far more disruptive.  It will create though a rich fabric for us all to share and communicate.  The best we’ve ever seen.I for one welcome any sort of “encouragement” Google can give to get others to make this reality happen faster.  I also welcome the competitive pressure it puts on other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  Photos are horrible on Twitter.  Who wants to see a photograph as a little squiggle of text?  Facebook has already become competing.  Look how much larger photos are on Facebook than before Google+.  All of a sudden they are willing to pay for bigger bandwidth to give them to us bigger.  That’s GREAT. 

  • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

    All this uproar over Google listing it’s own Google+ results in it’s search results is nothing but that–uproar. The simple fact is that you have to be logged in to see these types of results. if you’re not logged in then you see them. And if you don’t want to see *you’re* Google+ results in your search results then it’s easy enough to turn this feature off.

    Google has already announced that it is is integrating Google+ into nearly all aspects of it’s offerings (search, news, docs, Picasa, etc) and why shouldn’t they? And it’s your Google account you’re logging into so why not have everything integrated? And when logged in, your search results are tailored to you as far as Google+ results are concerned, not somebody else and again, you can turn off this feature if you don’t like it. And, as always, if you post something to Google+ that you don’t want public then make sure you don’t make the post public.

    If Facebook and Twitter want their search results indexed by Google then they should let Google index them. Of course, if this did happen then all of our Google search results might end up being littered with mostly useless Twitter and Facebook snippets whether we were logged into our Google accounts or not. ;-)

  • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

    All this uproar over Google listing it’s own Google+ results in it’s search results is nothing but that–uproar. The simple fact is that you have to be logged in to see these types of results. if you’re not logged in then you see them. And if you don’t want to see *you’re* Google+ results in your search results then it’s easy enough to turn this feature off.

    Google has already announced that it is is integrating Google+ into nearly all aspects of it’s offerings (search, news, docs, Picasa, etc) and why shouldn’t they? And it’s your Google account you’re logging into so why not have everything integrated? And when logged in, your search results are tailored to you as far as Google+ results are concerned, not somebody else and again, you can turn off this feature if you don’t like it. And, as always, if you post something to Google+ that you don’t want public then make sure you don’t make the post public.

    If Facebook and Twitter want their search results indexed by Google then they should let Google index them. Of course, if this did happen then all of our Google search results might end up being littered with mostly useless Twitter and Facebook snippets whether we were logged into our Google accounts or not. ;-)

    • http://www.facebook.com/blake Blake Ross

      This is false, as you can see from any of the following examples:

      1. Log out of your Google account. Search for “music” or “photography” or “shopping”. Check out the Google+ results stream on the right.

      2. Log out of your Google account. Search for “Macy’s” or “ABC News”. Notice that the Google+ page is artificially boosted in the “organic” search results by virtue of being appended to the top result. It also contains special enriched formatting that drives clicks and that no other site on the web has access to, e.g. it includes a thumbnail and recent posts from the page.

      3 Log out of your Google account. Go to google.com and type in “Mark Zuckerberg”. Note that Mark Zuckerberg’s Google+ profile appears in the typeahead.

      • Anonymous

        Thanks for these examples Blake.

      • http://just-thinkin.net kmb42vt

        I concede your point and thanks for the examples. ironically enough my searches of late were never “generic”(?) I guess you’d call it, to bring up the right hand Google+ stream. My searches usually tend to be more specific. Same fro the Google+ “boosted” results. I wouldn’t have necessarily seen that without your examples.

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  • http://www.adrianspeyer.com Adrian

    I have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to accept the new normal. The reality is we have near-nearsightedness of the issue, as we are too focused in our “little community” of promoting websites. The average person doesn’t care. They still use Google, and will keep using Google until Google ruins their own experience. Until Google starts to lose market share and users start to switch to a competitor, as marketers, we are bound by Google’s rules. Personally I like Google+ and the new search as a user. As a marketer, I am definitely fearful of the impact Google+ has as the search algorithm. It almost seems like it will now be taken over by crowd-sourcing +1. It means “little voices”, who do not have big circles will be harder to hear, no matter the compelling topic or SEO tactic. This is really the big issue, but in Google’s view, it works, because in theory, good content will rise and be +1. The problem is the lack of platform of smaller publishers to be heard from the start. So in this sense John, you are safe, it’s the little people with small blogs who could occasionally percolate to the top who might be silenced.  This is why I think, as hard as it is, Google has changed the rules, and because they are leader in search we have no choice but to play by them if we want to be heard.

    • Anonymous

      I can imagine alternatives.

      • http://twitter.com/tomblue tomblue

        If the FTC/DOJ doesn’t hammer Google I am sure the EU will. With 90%+ market share you have a legal responsibility to the marketplace.  Could you imagine if Google owned 90% of the real estate in Manhattan and replaced all retail stores with theirs?  Everywhere you went you only saw Google products?  Of course, you could find other company products, but they would be on the second/third floors.  All the marginal Google stuff on the first.  How could other businesses ever get started? 
        This isn’t just about twitter and facebook.  It is about smaller startups that both Europe and the US so desperately need right now. The argument that Google can do what they want with their site is moot.   Antitrust laws were put in place so businesses that had a lot of power couldn’t use that power to stop healthy competition.  There is a reason why we don’t all work for Standard Oil right now.

  • http://www.adrianspeyer.com Adrian

    Sorry for the dup

  • http://www.adrianspeyer.com Adrian

    I have come to the conclusion that we have no choice but to accept the new normal. The reality is we have near-nearsightedness of the issue, as we are too focused in our “little community” of promoting websites. The average person doesn’t care. They still use Google, and will keep using Google until Google ruins their own experience. Until Google starts to lose market share and users start to switch to a competitor, as marketers, we are bound by Google’s rules. Personally I like Google+ and the new search as a user. As a marketer, I am definitely fearful of the impact Google+ has as the search algorithm. It almost seems like it will now be taken over by crowd-sourcing +1. It means “little voices”, who do not have big circles will be harder to hear, no matter the compelling topic or SEO tactic. This is really the big issue, but in Google’s view, it works, because in theory, good content will rise and be +1. The problem is the lack of platform of smaller publishers to be heard from the start. So in this sense John, you are safe, it’s the little people with small blogs who could occasionally percolate to the top who might be silenced.  This is why I think, as hard as it is, Google has changed the rules, and because they are leader in search we have no choice but to play by them if we want to be heard.

  • george

    Regardless of perspective, the facts remain, this is a walled-garden approach, something we don’t expect from Google. I don’t blame them, it’s a necessary evil (survival). Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Apple are all proving where web traffic really measures – time and/or commerce. It’s starting to look like man-made islands and Google needs one quickly (hence Google +).

    The really interesting part is how Google is focused on building user interest, minimizing the switching costs (social pains) by developing creative combinations; that seems initially to be the value proposition to lure more users over.

  • sder

    John,
    the self-proclaimed “early adopters” or Google+ losers seem to have shown in masse. They gain brownie points with each other by defending all things Google.

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  • http://www.milliondollarcuffs.org Triangle Dimes

    I didn’t like Google + when it first came out and everyone said I was an asshole. It was actually pretty aggressive.

  • Guest

    I don’t use Google for search. Ever. But I guess I’ll fire it up once just to turn off this Google+ Your World business.  Thanks for the 411.

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  • Rufus Evison

    I have one browser (firefox) logged in to G+ and one that I donot log in (IE) so that i can conveniently and easily swap my search. It seems wrong that i need ot change browsers to get a proper web search but there it is. If it is stuill the same in a coup.le of months I will move to another search engine for searching the web and keep google for search with added G+ness. Google used to be a search engine for searching the web, but for the minute that has changed.

  • Mia

    It seems that one can’t escape social networks, you’re either in, or you’re out … and if you’re out they’ll hunt you down. Regarding search results, personalized results are a plus, however it takes away the objectivity.

    It will be a grey day when in order to get a search result I’ll have to pass through an intermediate.

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  • Alfred Ingram

    You should be glad to know that the very first result for “searchblog” is John Battelle’s Searchblog, and yes I have search plus your world tutned on.

    • Anonymous

      Personalized search means it will be diff for all…

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  • http://www.usemeplz.com/ Usemeplz

    i think what he means is that Google needs to do this to fight off FB and maintain its dominance.

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  • http://profile.yahoo.com/7PPQ7RYDUBZJY7SCKX2FKU2LTQ Evelyn Justice

    I stopped using all google services, they are just starting to really creep me out.  I feel like I’m being stalked as I use the net nowadays.  It’s like a war between google and facebook to see who can gather more on it’s users for personal gain. 
    They forgot about us, the regular people, so I quit using google+ and facebook and now use a search engine called DuckDuckGo and am telling everyone about a newer site called AutumnsList (social site) as an alternative to google+ and facebook.  In the process of getting my family to join, so i can chat with them without all the b.s. involved.
    I just want some services to use without all the b.s. and these 2 are looking really good in my opinion.  do a search for each name mentioned and you can read more about them.

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