If you’re like me and do most of your industry specific research online, you probably have a set of blogs and web sites that you trust and rely on more than any others. For a long time, I wished that I could do a Google search within just those trusted sites because I knew that all the results would be reliable.
That ability is now available with Google’s Social Search feature. Right now it’s only available by activating it in Google Labs and of course you must be signed into your Google account for it to work.
Once it is enabled, it becomes another feature under “Show Options” in your web search. There are some very interesting parts of Google Social Search.
The first question to address is WHERE does the list of trusted sites come from? Right now, we know for sure that the following services influence this list:
- Google Chat/Contacts
- Google Reader
- Google Profile
The listings will also tell you HOW that person got onto your list. In the example below, I can see that Joseph Morin is on my list because he is a Gmail contact. The second listing, kid disco is a contact on Twitter. You can know for sure how these folks are ending up in your social search because Google tells you straight out.
The options continue, with a list of the people in your social circle that contributed to the results for your search query. If you want to see the results from just one person, just click on that person’s name.
This is such a fantastic addition to Google’s Web Search and one I know I’ll use often. Head on over to Google Labs and give it a try.