How to Turn Off Google Search Plus Your World Results If you are tired of seeing the pileup of social content from Google+ friends every time you use Google, you can now do something about it. Here's how to get old Google back and block the personalized results that Google Search, plus Your World spews up. When the Google Search, plus Your World update debuted in January, the new Google feature didn't gain many fans. Twitter and others criticized the enhancement for bumping up Google+ profile pages (images, videos and mentions in posts by the 62 million+ people on the social layer of Google) that relates to your search term. Many thought the search giant was favoring its own links instead of bringing up the most relevant links, tainting the progress of the open web. SEE ALSO: How Google’s +1 Button Affects SEO Follow the directions in the video to turn off Google's new enhanced search feature. Tell us in the comments if you will disable personalized searches or if you like the Google+-related recommendations.
Two Weeks In, Google Says "Search Plus Your World" Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time Two weeks ago, Google launched Search Plus Your World. Since then, Google has faced strong criticisms that SPYW is making its search relevancy worse and favoring its Google+ social network too much. Not so, says Google search chief Amit Singhal. Most Google users are happy, Singhal said. I talked today with Singhal — the “Google Fellow” who oversees all of Google’s search algorithms — about the reaction to Search Plus Your World. What’s been your overall reaction or thoughts as you’ve seen all the debate about Search Plus Your World? The overall takeaway that I have in my mind is that people are judging a product and an overall direction that we have in the first two weeks of a launch, where we are producing a product for the long term. There are two main changes that Search Plus Your World introduced. Every time a real user is getting those results, they really are delighted. How about the concerns that Google+ is being favored too much? This is the first two weeks of the product.
Google to merge user data across its services As Google grows, it wants to streamline its many products and keep single profiles about each user. Google announces changes to its privacy policyGoogle will soon create a single profile of the data it has about each userThe new policy will take effect on March 1 (CNN) -- Google plans to start combining information the company collects about each user of its various websites and services into a single profile, the company announced on Tuesday. Previously, Google said it did not create comprehensive profiles across its various properties, including its leading search engine, Android smartphone operating system and YouTube video site. In a statement, Alma Whitten, a Google privacy director, wrote that the changes "will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience." First ever look inside Google New York Google's Eric Schmidt: exclusive preview The new privacy policy, too, has already sparked concerns voiced on social networks, including on Google's own platform.
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But chances are, unless you're a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing in a few words and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way -- and it’s not hard to learn. On the other hand, even if you are a technology geek and can use Google like the best of them already, I still suggest you bookmark this article of Google advanced search tips. ⬇ Download Now: SEO Starter Pack [Free Kit] The following Google advanced search tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. Here's an overview of some of the most useful Google search tricks. 1. Let's say you're searching on Google for content about inbound marketing. Example Search: "inbound marketing" 2. Example Search: inbound marketing -advertising 3. Example Search: inbound marketing OR advertising 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
New Site Helps You Control Google Search Results for Your Name Potential employers, clients and dates are all Googling your name. BrandYourself, a new website launching Thursday, helps make sure they find what you want them to. The website guides you in search optimizing the links you want to push up in Google results for your name. Here’s how it works: You choose the links you want to “boost,” for example your LinkedIn profile. BrandYourself tracks the links you choose and lets you know if their Google rankings change. The startup also provides a profile page where you can link to all your other online profiles. Co-founders Pete Kistler and Patrick Ambron launched the first beta version of BrandYourself in 2008. “By focusing on one important thing, we were able to make the product more powerful and effective,” BrandYourself Co-founder Patrick Ambron tells Mashable. That one thing – boosting positive links in search results – has been proven to be important. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Maravic
Google's Privacy Update: What You Need to Know Google's new privacy update that will allow the company to eventually integrate its products will kick in March 1. Tuesday's news that Google condensed its 70 privacy settings into one easier-to-understand and more transparent document, paves the way for the company to meld its products into a more integrated and intuitive user platform, i.e. Google needed to give itself permission to sync your products in the future. Nothing will change tangibly on March 1 — Google products will all still look and function the same. Not searching for a gym membership in January? Just like with iTunes and other online services, there is no way to opt out of a privacy policy, other than not using the service — and that's unlikely considering Google is the world's largest search engine. When Google launched Search Plus Your World it had some people wondering if Google searches would be tainted with irrelevant Google+ results. Photo courtesy of iStock, by Alija.
The Good News About Google's New Search Plus Your World Google launched a major new feature this week called Google Search Plus Your World and many people are incredibly upset about it. The feature presents search results from your contacts on Google's social network, Google+, and the things they've shared. It's clutter, critics say, it's unfair, it's a violation of a sacred contract between users and Google. Be that as it may, the feature can also be pretty awesome. Below I've listed 5 examples of search queries that were fabulously improved by the availability of the new search results. Sullivan offers evidence that a search for Britney Spears will never be the same and that only a few ambitious brands are highlighted in a search for the word cars. I don't know about you, but when I want to find Britney Spears, I know where to go. But look for business or technical terms and if you've got friends like I do, the new Google search feature is great. Ok, here are some examples of the new search being a big win.
Is Google+ Mandatory For Marketers? And Is That So Bad? When Google launched its Google+ social network, the marketing world (along with everyone else) barely noticed. When Google decided to make this social network a bigger part of search results, marketers had little choice but to sit up and take action. Over the last week or so, we at Motivity have spent a fair amount of time talking to clients and constituents about Google’s latest move, and what’s emerging is a picture of concern and skepticism. Is Participation Mandatory? Many of the advertisers I have spoken to feel they are being forced into participation in Google’s social platform because of the recent addition of Search Plus Your World. It doesn’t help that the average advertiser’s experience of working with Google leaves much to be desired. Additionally, marketers — the paying customers — are growing tired of having new products sprung on them the same way Google surprises the (largely) non-paying consumers. The sales approach doesn’t sit well with some, either.
Not At Any Price: Twitter Denied Data To Google And Bet On Itself If Twitter continued to sell its firehose to Google, fewer searches would occur on Twitter’s internal search engine where the microblog platform can serve its own ads. That’s why sources familiar with the negotiations tell me Twitter wouldn’t renew the data access deal at any price, or at least set a ludicrously high price to sink the deal. Cash and increased visibility on Google Search was more valuable to Twitter in 2009 when it was still trying to gain serious traction. There are a lot of conflicting reports on exactly how negotiations went down, stirred up by the launch of Google Search plus Your World (Search+) which favors Google+ results. [Update: As Liz Gannes points out, Twitter did do a firehose deal with Bing. Actually, I think backing out of the Google firehose deal was a courageous move for Twitter. Unfortunately for the end-user, no deal means Search+ isn’t quite as useful as it could be, as Steven Levy describes.
Google Stockpiles Data Ammo Through Privacy Merge, Guns To Win Relevancy War Data is ammunition in the war for delivering the most relevant information. And Larry Page, the prototypical war-time CEO, has just told everyone to empty their ammo packs so Google can build one big bomb with the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” and “Apple” chalked on the side. The privacy policy change announced today rolls more than 70 separate policies into a single one, and will let the company combine any piece of data it has about you into a single profile. Think of any random thing you or anyone you’re somehow connected to has done on any Google service ever. Before the launch of Google+ for search last week, this would have been a seminal moment in Google’s history. What we are looking at is how Google is trying to make its social relevancy suck less – a big question that a lot of us have. It’s like an in-house rival to Facebook’s developer platform, through which Facebook can gain valuable new insight into what users care about through how they use apps and web sites.
Twitter Slams Google: Social Search Changes Are 'Bad for People' The social networking war just heated up a few degrees. After Google announced Tuesday morning that it would more closely integrate Google+ into its regular search results , vocal opposition to the changes arrived Tuesday afternoon from an unlikely source: Twitter . A statement from the microblogging company said Twitter's real-time information was often the most relevant result on Google. "As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter," the company said. "We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone." SEE ALSO: Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut The Google update, known as "Search Plus Your World," blends Google+ pages that have been made public in with regular search results on Google — although the Google+ results are clearly annotated. Still, it evidently got the warning klaxons blaring over at Twitter HQ. SEE ALSO: Mashable's Complete Guide to Google+
Google Fires Back at Twitter: You Took Yourself Out of Search Sharks Circle Around Google Search+: EPIC Cries Antitrust, Twitter Provides Evidence There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search+ (what we’re now calling Google Search Plus Your World). The Electronic Privacy Information Center recommends the FTC look at Search+ for possible privacy or antitrust concerns. Meanwhile, Twitter’s General Counsel Alexander Macgillivray provides apparently damning evidence for why Search+ unfairly skews search results towards Google+ content instead of the most relevant results. A search for World Wrestling Entertainment Twitter handle “@wwe” returns 5 Google+ results above the fold, but no sign of Twitter. But wait, Google Search doesn’t properly process symbols like ‘@’, so searches for “@wwe” and “wwe” produce the same results. Folks asked for examples. So to be clear, the only thing that Macgillivray’s screenshot shows is that Search+ is just piling on an additional Google+ sidebar that doesn’t show Twitter or other relevant social network profiles.
Google Fuses Google+ Into Search — And There Are Bigger Changes Afoot Since the launch of Google+, Google has been putting a lot of muscle behind promoting and integrating the service into its core products. Fire up a new Android 4.0 device, and you’ll be prompted to create a Google+ account if you haven’t already. They’ve given it TV ads, not to mention a priceless promotion on its homepage. And today, Google is launching an update to its core search engine at Google.com that continues this trend — and then some. They’re calling it ‘Search plus Your World’. The short version is that Google search results are going to be automatically personalized (to a greater degree than they were already) for each user, with signals drawn from your Google+ Circles being used to highlight things your friends — or you, yourself — have shared. This is probably easiest to understand with an example, so here goes. For most people, this would probably pull up links to the books, the films, and a variety of fansites. It’s starting small, with Google+ and Picasa integration.