Google has announced a suite of new updates for its search results that more closely integrate the company’s own social networking service, Google+, but Twitter has already taken umbrage with the changes, saying they will dilute results from its own network.
The SEO community has already suggested this morning the changes could draw some attention from legal authorities, who may become concerned that Google is flirting dangerously close to breaking antitrust provisions.
But experts also suggest businesses should pay attention, as the growing prominence of Google+ means SMEs should start registering their own profiles.
In a statement, Twitter this morning said the changes were bad news for internet and social networking users.
“For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the internet,” it said, according to All Things Digital.
“Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and tweets are often the most relevant results.”
This statement comes six months after a deal terminated between the two companies that saw tweets indexed in Google search results. However, that deal was not continued, and as a result, Twitter lost some prominence, traffic and money.
The changes themselves are quite significant. Google explained in its post they are broken into three categories – personal results, profiles in search and people and pages.
The first change will see Google+ posts and photographs from your friends in Google+ show up in your search results page. The second change, “profiles in search”, will see profiles of your friends show up in the text box of a search results page in the drop-down box.
Clicking their name also takes you to a results page where you can view other web results related to that person. But you will also see profiles appear for prominent writers, business people and others, advancing Google’s intent of more closely tying content on the web to its author.
Lastly, another change will also see profiles for “prominent people” show up alongside normal search results for generic topics, along with links to communities within Google+.
Twitter noted this will make other search results less prominent, and as a result, “we’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone”.
Stewart Media chief executive Jim Stewart says despite the controversy, it’s clear SMEs must start working on Google+ profiles if they want to make an impact.
“One of the things that has surprised me is the lack of businesses on Google that have a brand page. It takes about 15-20 minutes to do, and it’s really the same as not registering your own brand name.”
“One of the reasons Google is talking about authorship so much is to give correct authorship to the right pieces of content. If you’re an individual or business putting content out there, setting up a Google profile can help protect their content.”
Stewart points out that from a sheer content point of view, Google can’t compete with Twitter.
“From a discovery aspect, Twitter has a better handle on things. And so they have to compete in some way.”
“But more businesses are discovering Google+ and it’s becoming much more powerful.”
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
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