Getting Intimate with Google Personal Search

In a further effort to make search results more relevant to it users, Google will begin to provide more personalized search results for users of the fledgling Google+ social networking service. The new service will draw search results by drawing on the photos, news and comments posted from within the Google+ network and should be rolled out in the next few days.

Amit Singhal from Google

A new service called "Search, Plus Your World" will display users own content from Google+, along with posts from friends, said Amit Singhal, who focuses on improving information retrieval at Mountain View, California-based Google. If someone searched for a dog, for instance, pictures of friends’ dogs might show up first in their search results.

"At Google, we always want to return the most comprehensive and relevant answers to your questions, and many times those answers are in the open public Web, but many times those answers are in your own personal content," Singhal said. "This is the first time we’re bringing personal content right into the results page."

Other changes to the Google search include a new feature called “Profiles in Search” which will include an auto complete function that will display links to your friends (from Google+) accounts while typing in queries in to the search box on Google. The new service will also offer suggestions of people to follow. This information will be drawn from Google+ accounts or from Google’s photo-sharing service, Picasa.

Despite its best efforts, Google still struggles to compete with the social media giant Facebook. As of October 2010, Google had 40 million users, compared to the 800 million Facebook users.