Google has recently started ringed in a lot of Google+ results into it’s search results. It introduced personalized results which show up when users are signed in. Twitter had its issues with the new results as it felt Google was being partial to Google+ results.
For example when we search for the term ‘Facebook’ on Google, I get results to People and Pages Related to Facebook along with the regular links. These results show links to profiles of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.
These are links to their Google+ profiles. Both profiles have never been updated for many months. Considering both account for the positions of CEO and COO at Facebook between themselves, it would be better for Google to show links to their Facebook accounts which are a lot more current.
While Google might be suggesting Facebook and Twitter are not sharing their data, but a search for ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ shows up his profile on Facebook as the top social result. So Google is in a way unfairly pushing only Google+ results.
‘Don’t Be Evil’ Features
Facebook, Twitter and MySpace engineers have come with a bookmarklet cheekily called ‘Don’t be Evil’. It aims to transform the results into more relevant ones as seen in the image below.
- The results are transformed into more relevant ones after clicking on the ‘Don’t be Evil’ bookmarklet.
- There is also a Chrome extension if you prefer extensions instead of bookmarklets.
- What is interesting to note is that these results are improved by using Google search results itself.
Here is video demonstration about this bookmarklet and how it improves search results.
What are your views on Google search results pushing Google+ profiles and pages? Should they stop being partial towards its own social network? Do drop in your comments.