A general user may not notice it, but Google has always favored its own web properties, including blogspot.com blogs, in its search results, and this is nothing new. Search for a particular video on Google.com, and you get to see all the results from YouTube only on the first page; none from say a Vimeo, which may also have those videos!
But if you see, videos on ‘Repair Windows 7’ exists on Vimeo.com too, yet not one finds place on the first page above. One has to mention Vimeo in the search bar to be able to see such videos on Vimeo.
Now Google+ too joins the rank of the favored! Internet users have started noticing that while searching on Google.com, you may not necessarily always get relevant results. This is because apart from the relevant search results, Google has also decided to pimp its Google+ social network by showing results from Google+. This is ofcourse apart from the many advertisements and recommendations you may see on the top of the page and on the side-margins.
The invasion of Google+ on Google Search has only intensified in the recent past. SearchEngineLand has noted that Google has now even started encouraging people at the end of its search listings to ask friends about what they were Googling.
Search for any query on Google and you will be asked: Want to ask your friends about whatever? Ask on Google+?
On a related note, Ben Edelman had this to say:
I’ve found more than a dozen Google services receiving favored placement in Google search results. Consider Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Checkout, Google Health, Google Images, Google Maps, Google News, Google Realtime, Google Shopping, and Google Video. Some have developed into solid products with loyal users. Others are far weaker. But each enjoys a level of favored placement in Google search results that other services can only dream of.
Google has also introduced a change in its algorithm, where it proposed to punish “all” websites that had too many advertisements displayed above the fold, all meaning, all except Google.com! For if you see most search results on Google these days, you find that there are more ads above the fold filling up the top.
Well, there is unfortunately not much one can do these days, for after all Google is the King of Search and consequently of the Internet.
Somehow somewhere along the way, the interests of the user seem to have taken a back seat.
But there is still hope for Google lovers like us! Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and gang have now released a tool called ‘Dont be Evil Google’, which will search Google and display results not just from Google+, but also from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter too.
