Force Fed Search: Google’s New “Search, plus Your World”

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Google+ exists whether you like it or not – that’s the message Google sent today.  Whether you created a profile to be on the cusp of something new and quickly lost interest, or you actually use the service, it will soon be a much bigger part of your life.

Today on the Official Google Blog, Google announced how our search lives will be changed in three major ways:

1. Personal Results, which enable you to find information just for you, such as Google+ photos and posts—both your own and those shared specifically with you, that only you will be able to see on your results page; 
2. Profiles in Search, both in auto-complete and results, which enable you to immediately find people you’re close to or might be interested in following; and, 
3. People and Pages, which help you find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable you to follow them with just a few clicks. Because behind most every query is a community.

The “Personal Results” feature really is taking personalized search to the next level – maybe even jumping ahead of the cloud.  Google will now be delivering things that you would typically search your computer or post history for, directly to the search engine results page.  Will it change the way people stalk each other?  Doubtful.  Will it change the way we view search engines as a whole.  Probably.  Although, I’m not sure this will make Google anyone’s default destination to find pictures of their vacation from last year, at least right way.  It will take a shift in thinking for this to become your brain’s go-to location for this new style of search.

Second on the list, one could argue that “Profiles in Search” is nothing that new.  It’s no secret that Google+ profiles have already started to dominate the organic results, especially since Google’s deal with Twitter expired in July of last year – effectively eliminating real time search.

Not only does this bring Google+ profiles top of mind, it forces anyone online that cares about their personal brand to at the very least create a G+ profile.  With that, anyone that does care about their personal brand will also want to control the information that people see when searching for them online.  In my opinion, Google is virtually forcing anybody with an online presence to embrace G+ as a viable social network.  If profiles are going to rank well in search, then people will begin to populate those profiles with relevant information.

The third item on the list seems to be the one that will be the most telling.  If people are not willing to adopt Google+ as their social network of choice, the #1 search engine will force them to by flooding the organic results with G+ properties, in addition to the Google properties which already appear.  It’s not quite the case yet – except in this fabricated screen shot:

With so many different properties on the web, all relevant to the same business, it’s scary to think what the search results could become.  What are your thoughts on Google’s latest move?  Game changer, or just a short time before it meets the same fate as Google Wave?