Search Plus Your World = Google + Google+ Squared ?

Google + Google+ - (Facebook + Twitter + Flickr) / personal opinion = Search, plus Your World, Google's latest evolution in search. In a move which will almost certainly give rise to underlying security doubts, Google have began rolling out search results inclusive of both privately shared and publicly available content.  

Previously, users were required to search in different ways depending upon the type of results they sought, namely personalised or non-personalised.  The new method of merging both sets allows for a comprehensive search experience tailored to the user, with the handy option to switch between personalised and non- personalised SERPs located at the top of Search Plus Your World results; something of an insurance policy for SEOs.

This is the latest in a long line of personalisation developments from Google since 2005, when bespoke results first made their way into public search.  In February of 2007, personalisation was integrated into searches regardless of a user's sign-in status.  Then, in February 2011, integration of social results came into place with the exception of Facebook, an exception which remains today.

In fact, despite the enhanced ability to share and engage with private content within Google Universal search, there are a few notable absences.  No Twitter, Facebook, or Flickr. Instead, Google+ and Picassa dominate Search plus Your World.  While some may see this as a blatant attempt to edge out the competition within their own search results, Google have explained that the reason for the exclusion is due to an inability to crawl and store data from these sites. 

Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise; Google+ is relatively new and poses a lesser threat of resurfacing old, forgotten content; something which caused concern when the Facebook Time-line was launched, and was covered in detail in this New York Times article.

Search Plus Your World is currently only available to users who are signed in to Google.com, and are searching in English.  In essence, the results are a combination of privately shared content viewable only by the sharer or sharee, and public content viewable by all.  For many, the sheer visibility of private content within a Google search will be unsettling, however, Google has assured onlookers that security is tight.

In October 2011, Google began encrypting searches by default when they were already logged into Google.com via a secure connection.  The move also blocked the passing of referrer data from users who were signed in, putting the kibosh on webmasters' ability to track keyphrases used by signed in searchers to reach a site. It hasn't been a popular move; the provision of “(not provided)” as a keyphrase within the organic traffic section of Google Analytics profiles is less than useful.

It was this development however, which has allowed for the secure launch of Search plus Your World.  The encryption in question allows for the protection of any private material shown within a Universal search, and, as stated in Google blog post, provides the same level of protection to users' search results as it does for their Gmail accounts. 

More information on Search plus Your World can be found in Google's official blog post.