Things To Do In Barcelona Search
I often pose questions on Twitter and occasionally Facebook but now I’m being encouraged to ask a question to people in my Google + circles after I perform a Google search.
This feature was rolled out recently (covered on Search Engine Land) but my browser is usually the last to see the changes so I was surprised when I noticed this at the bottom of my search results today.
By clicking to ask the question on Google + a light box appears where you can edit the question and pose it those in your Google + circles. It’s actually a clever addition and perhaps one that I may utilise from time to time but perhaps only for certain queries. Say for example you were searching for “Things to do in Barcelona” and you couldn’t find the answer you were looking for in Google search results, I could get an answer from travel people on Google +.
Ask on Google plus
Although I’m seeing this change I’m still waiting to see “Google Plus your World” rolled out here in the UK. The “ask on Google +” is an interesting addition to Google’s search, you do have to be signed in and have a Google + account.
What do you think? Is this something you would use?
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I’ve not tried it yet – but it seems Google are moving towards the theory that the web now has sufficient mass of social users to mean that user curated content / search results are as valuable to end users as search results from their usual algorithms. It’s no different to how facebook offers the “ask a question” option in their status update.
I think what riles people about it is the fact that Google has so long been seen as the “simple, clean” search engine that focuses on search above all else. Whilst these changes are in theory offering a wider range of search results.. I’m not sure people are happy about the privacy implications of Google being more than just a search company.. despite the fact that they’ve been much more than that for a long time.
Hope some of that made sense
Hi Laurence,
Made perfect sense! Interesting times at the moment with Facebook and Twitter being angry at Google over Google + search integration. Think they feel a bit vulnerable.
I also have been saying for a long time (before G+) that Google desperately needed that social media element to add to it’s search algorithm. If they didn’t get it then someone elses search engine would have an advantage.